Strengthening System-Wide Gender Integration: UN Women Yemen’s Leadership in Coordinating Women’s Voices through National Consultations

In 2025, UN Women Yemen played a leading coordination role in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment that placed women’s voices at the center of collective UN action through a series of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to inform the next strategic cooperation framework. The consultations were organized as part of broader analytical and planning processes aimed at strengthening gender-responsive programming and ensuring that the voices, priorities, and lived realities of Yemeni women and girls are foundational to strategic action for the country's future.

As a strategic coordination initiative, the FGDs served as a key mechanism to integrate women’s perspectives into system-wide analysis and planning. Through this process and in partnership with the UN Country Team, UN Women Yemen ensured that women’s experiences were included for more understanding of Yemen’s path forward regarding the humanitarian response, economic recovery, governance, and access to essential services. The consultations provided a platform for diverse groups of women including entrepreneurs, women heads of households, young women, displaced women, women with disabilities and women affected by conflict to share their perspectives on the challenges they face and the opportunities they identify for strengthening resilience and recovery.

Adopting gender-responsive and conflict-sensitive approaches, UN Women contributed to the conceptualization and methodological design of the consultation process, led by the Resident Coordinator Office.. The discussions explored critical areas of women’s empowerment, including economic participation, access to services, leadership and decision-making, and structural and socio-cultural barriers limiting women’s opportunities. Particular focus was placed on women’s access to economic opportunities, barriers related to small and medium enterprise development, access to markets and finance, unpaid care responsibilities, mobility restrictions, and engagement with public institutions.

Beyond technical leadership, UNW YCO played a central coordination role in convening partners across the UN system, national stakeholders, civil society organizations, and women-led networks. This collaborative approach ensured alignment with national priorities and international normative frameworks, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Through these partnerships, UN Women supported the mainstreaming of gender equality and women’s empowerment as a cross-cutting priority across sectors and institutional processes.

The consultations also strengthened collaboration across humanitarian, development, and peace actors operating in Yemen. By generating qualitative insights on women’s experiences and priorities, the consultations helped build a shared understanding of gender-specific vulnerabilities and opportunities for empowerment. These insights informed coordinated programme design, policy dialogue, and advocacy efforts among UN agencies and partners.

Importantly, the consultations strengthened the UN system’s evidence base on gender equality in Yemen. The findings complemented existing analytical work and fed directly into the UN system’s foundational assessment of development challenges and opportunities in the country. By ensuring that women’s perspectives were captured and reflected within this process, UN Women played a key role in strengthening the integration of gender analysis within system-wide strategic planning.

“Through this initiative, UN Women has demonstrated the power of coordinated, evidence-based engagement in ensuring that the voices of women and girls are not only heard but systematically shape the UN system’s priorities and responses in Yemen. This work reinforces our commitment to placing gender equality at the centre of humanitarian, development, and peace efforts.”- Dina Zorba, UN Women Yemen- Country Representative.

Looking ahead, the insights generated through these consultations will shape priorities under the upcoming United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF). The consultations support efforts to ensure that gender equality, women’s leadership, and economic empowerment remain central pillars of the UN’s collective engagement in the country.

Ultimately, the consultation process illustrates how inclusive dialogue and coordinated leadership can strengthen the integration of gender equality across institutional systems. Through its convening power, technical expertise, and coordination mandate, UN Women Yemen continues to ensure that women’s/ girls’ priorities are essential to Yemen’s recovery, and long-term development trajectory.