As cybersecurity becomes increasingly central to economic stability, public trust and global resilience, UN Women and the Global Cybersecurity Forum have signed a new partnership agreement to expand women’s participation and leadership in one of the world’s most critical and fast-growing sectors.
The agreement was signed by UN Women’s Executive Director and the CEO of the Global Cybersecurity Forum, at a high-level event convened on 22 September 2026, on the margins of UNGA81 at the UN Headquarters. The event saw the launch of the Women’s Empowerment in Cybersecurity initiative – a collaboration to challenge stereotypes, strengthen leadership pathways and create concrete opportunities for women and girls to enter, advance and lead in cybersecurity. The event further spotlighted women's leadership in cybersecurity and the importance of recognizing good practice in advancing women's participation in the sector.
The Erudite Women's Empowerment Foundation has launched the Media for Equality campaign, a gender-transformative advocacy initiative aimed at challenging the social norms, stereotypes and structural barriers that limit women's leadership and political participation in Ghana.
The campaign was organised under the UN Women WYDE Women's Leadership Programme, with the foundation serving as a grantee of UN Women, with funding from the European Union.
As part of the implementation of the women's political participation and social norms change in Ghana project, the foundation will champion female leadership by empowering 150 young women to pursue leadership roles in the Asante Akim Central, Asante Akim South and Asante Akim North municipalities.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL) have launched a new initiative to support aspiring women politicians through capacity building and intergenerational leadership ahead of The Gambia’s 2027 National Assembly and Local Government elections.
The three-day initiative, supported under the Building Resilient and Inclusive Development for Governance and Equity (BRIDGE) Project, focuses on electoral preparedness, manifesto development, leadership and practical support for women seeking political office.
The move comes as women remain significantly underrepresented in elected positions despite making up 51 per cent of the country’s population and 57 per cent of registered voters.
The 10th Voice of Women Conference and Awards (VOW2026) is set to focus on women’s political participation, leadership and representation as women from across Nigeria gather for the anniversary edition of the conference.
The event, organised by the Voice of Women Empowerment Foundation (VOWEF) in partnership with Women Radio WFM 91.7, is scheduled to hold on Tuesday, October 6, at Harbour Point, Victoria Island, Lagos.
The conference, themed “A Decade of Voices and Impact,” is expected to bring together policymakers, women leaders, entrepreneurs, students, civil society organisations, development partners, media professionals and grassroots women from the six geopolitical zones.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume; business leader and philanthropist Apostle Folorunso Alakija; former First Lady of Ekiti State, Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi; and Hansatu Adegbite are among those expected to attend.
Population Reference Bureau (PRB) has released the 2026 World Population Data Sheet, which provides global, regional, and country-specific data on population growth and decline, age structure, and fertility. Disaggregated indicators on health, economy, education, and governance reflect this year’s edition’s special focus on gender equality and well-being.
The report finds that “women’s political representation remains far from equal,” with women holding half or more seats in national legislatures in only seven countries. In 127 countries, or about two-thirds of those with data, less than one-third of seats belong to women. These include high-income democracies like the US, Canada, Ireland, Greece, and Japan. The report chalks up this representation gap to structural barriers such as “electoral systems that disadvantage women, weak or poorly enforced quotas, and unequal access to leadership positions – as well as violence and harassment that discourage women from politics.”
Getting women into political parties, elected councils and parliament is an important achievement. But across three conversations in Irbid, Ajloun and Tafilah, women raised a more challenging question: Does representation automatically mean influence?
This question was at the heart of the Women’s Political Salon, implemented by the Opinions Without Borders Center for Sustainable Development (OWB) in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) Jordan.
Held on 1, 4 and 6 August 2026, the three salons brought political dialogue beyond Amman, creating spaces where women could speak directly with parliamentarians, former legislators, academics, political actors and civil society representatives about what it really takes to participate—and lead—in political life.
Population Reference Bureau (PRB) has released the 2026 World Population Data Sheet, which provides global, regional, and country-specific data on population growth and decline, age structure, and fertility. Disaggregated indicators on health, economy, education, and governance reflect this year’s edition’s special focus on gender equality and well-being.
The report finds that “women’s political representation remains far from equal,” with women holding half or more seats in national legislatures in only seven countries. In 127 countries, or about two-thirds of those with data, less than one-third of seats belong to women. These include high-income democracies like the US, Canada, Ireland, Greece, and Japan. The report chalks up this representation gap to structural barriers such as “electoral systems that disadvantage women, weak or poorly enforced quotas, and unequal access to leadership positions – as well as violence and harassment that discourage women from politics.”
For the past two decades, the Global Gender Gap Index has benchmarked progress towards gender parity across four dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. The index continues to offer a consistent measure of the present state of gender parity, as well as the long-term evolution of global efforts to close the gender gap.
30 global leaders unveiled their groundbreaking solutions for gender equality today as part of UN Women’s HeForShe movement. Addressing critical policy issues, changing the course of business leadership and the futures of our next generation, these proven practices have the potential to see gender equality achieved within our lifetime.
HeForShe’s IMPACT Champions, comprised of 10 Heads of State, 10 global CEOs and 10 University Presidents, came together to share with the world the key obstacles they have faced on their journeys, as well as the innovative proven practices that can now empower the rest of the world. H.E. Arthur Peter Mutharika, President of Malawi, shared the story of how his country has ended child marriage once and for all, allowing more than 1500 girls to return to education. Bob Moritz, Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited shared the story of how his organization has gone from 18 per cent female representation in the Global Leadership Team in January 2016 to 47 per cent by December 2016. Paul Boyle, President and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leicester (U.K.) led a dynamic conversation on how students are generating solutions to address gender-based violence on their campuses.
“The results announced in today’s IMPACT 10x10x10 Parity Report are inspirational. In 2015, I challenged the Champions to ‘think big’ and commit to creative approaches that tackled the greatest barriers. We know that incremental steps do not bring us the benefits that we so urgently need,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women. “As leaders in their fields the Champions hold the key to breaking norms and making game-changing progress for both women and men. The report shares strategies, roadblocks and successes so others can follow suit.”
Introduction
Targeted online violence against women in public life is increasingly technologically sophisticated and damaging, triggering alarming rates of mental health diagnosis, heightened self-censorship, and more frequent escalation to law enforcement. For women human rights defenders and activists, journalists and media workers, and writers and other public communicators, online violence is often deliberate and coordinated, aiming to silence them while undermining their professional credibility and personal reputations. It also serves to fuel the reversal of hard-won rights in a climate of rising authoritarianism, democratic backsliding and networked misogyny. Gender rights rollback is both enabled and exacerbated by technologies which — by design — amplify misogynistic hate speech for profit.
Generative AI apps are the latest manifestation of this form of subjugation. They do not just ‘nudify’ women and girls instantaneously without their consent, they simulate them being sexually assaulted. AI-assisted ‘virtual rape’ is now at the fingertips of perpetrators. This phenomenon deepens and accelerates the harm inflicted on women in public life who are increasingly targeted in online violence campaigns with an escalation in associated offline attacks, abuse and harassment, as our previous research has shown. In this publication — the second installment in the Tipping Point series that examines how online violence is constraining women’s participation in public life in the AI Age — we focus primarily on manifestations of image-based abuse and what happens after exposure to such online violence. How are survivors affected personally and professionally? What coping mechanisms do they deploy? And how do they seek legal redress? Our data is derived from a UN-Women commissioned global survey which was distributed in late 2025 in five languages, in partnership with UNESCO and the International Center for Journalists.
Across the globe, deliberate illiberal strategies that exploit entrenched gender inequality are increasingly being used to weaken democratic institutions from within. The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was not simply a byproduct of chaos at the beginning of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. Rather, it followed a well-documented authoritarian strategy in which attacks on gender equality are used to consolidate power, narrow civic space, and make democratic governance harder to defend. While the process of dismantling the agency that administered U.S. government foreign assistance has been well documented, significant gaps remain between what insiders witnessed and what the broader public understands. This gap in understanding is not benign. When the public perceives these events as isolated policy shifts rather than coordinated institutional erosion, it diffuses accountability, obscures the impact, reduces resistance, and allows similar tactics to be redeployed without scrutiny.
The administration’s early actions targeting gender equality, women’s empowerment, LGBTQI+ initiatives, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility functions operated not as peripheral policy disputes but as frontline tactics that weakened foreign assistance infrastructure, government institutions, and democratic norms. Trump has used this approach since at least 2016. It was mapped out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Drawing on firsthand experience and technical analysis, this report situates these actions within an effective authoritarian pattern of leveraging patriarchal norms and cross-ideological gender bias to justify institutional retrenchment, create administrative compliance, and accelerate structural dismantling. Ultimately, the strategic sidelining of gender equality functions increased institutional vulnerability. Although the Trump administration’s targeting of those functions did not create the vulnerability, it recognized, exposed, and exploited it as part of a wider effort to erode democratic norms. Rebuilding democratic systems and foreign assistance architecture, therefore, will require treating gender equality as a core resilience safeguard rather than a peripheral policy concern. Its strategic targeting is central to the broader authoritarian assault on democracy. Democracy stakeholders must name that pattern, examine the decisions that enabled it, and learn from what unfolded.
