Advocacy & Lobbying
Three decades after the Beijing Platform for Action, the groundbreaking UN declaration that affirmed that women’s rights are human rights, the global movement for gender equality and women’s empowerment is under strain. Adopted in 1995 and signed by 189 governments, the ambitious framework spurred a generation of legal reforms, gains in political representation, and consolidation of norms around gender equality. Today, however, that momentum is faltering. Although some countries continue to make steady progress, a UN report released in March 2025 found that one in four countries is experiencing a backlash against gender equality. Around the world, 270 million women lack access
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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has cautioned that Nigeria’s continued exclusion of women from political leadership positions is no longer merely a social concern but a growing threat to the nation’s competitiveness in an increasingly dynamic global landscape.
Speaking in Abuja at a high-level roundtable with media practitioners on the Reserved Seats for Women Bill aimed at increasing women’s representation in Parliament, the UNDP Resident Representative for Nigeria, Elsie Attafua, explained that the debate over the proposed Special Seats Bill for Women must move beyond emotion and politics.
Stressing that women’s political participation is now a strategic requirement for Nigeria’s survival and leadership in a world being reshaped by artificial intelligence, demographic disruptions, mineral politics, and geopolitical rivalry.
Full article available here.
1 in 3 women and girls have experienced intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence or both
By responding to the needs of survivors, supporting their agency and investing in individuals, communities and systems,
we can end gender-based violence.
No single organization can do it alone.
UNFPA partners with governments, businesses, academics, civil society organizations – including feminist and women-led organizations, adolescent and youth networks, faith-based organizations and traditional leaders – as well as broader movements for human rights and social justice.
TOGETHER, WE
01
Build and share knowledge on gender-based violence and what works to address it.
02
Advocate to raise awareness, change laws and policies, and support their implementation.
03
Build capacities to respond to and prevent gender-based violence within systems and communities.
04
Deliver the right services at the right time to all survivors, including in humanitarian crises, fragile contexts and online spaces.
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Make sure that sexual and reproductive health services and comprehensive sexuality education address gender-based violence.
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Transform social gender norms and address structural inequalities to prevent gender-based violence.
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Support the agency of women, girls and young people in all their diversity.
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Respond and act to the impacts of GLOBAL HEALTH CRISES, INCLUDING Covid-19, climate change and environmental degradation, which heighten risks of gender-based violence and make it harder for survivors to access support.
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Publication date: 16 October 2025
Twenty-five years after the United Nations adopted Resolution 1325, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is both a landmark in diplomacy and a study in unfulfilled promise. Its most profound achievement has been to force open a conversation about the gendered power structures that fuel conflict. But that opening is narrowing. Escalating wars, a backlash against gender justice and a collapse in funding now threaten to strip the agenda of its transformative edge. The WPS agenda remains an essential tool for women peacebuilders. Whether it survives as a force for justice depends on whether the global community backs its principles with the resources and political will to make them real. Without that, the resolution’s 25th anniversary will mark the start of its decline, not its maturity.
Working in the mine action sector showed me that traditional constraints are created to be broken!” says Dina Khuder.
She, Mahrosa Abdulmuneer, and Maha Jamal are Iraqi women working for the Shareteah Humanitarian Organization, an implementing partner with the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Sinjar.
Women are valuable players in mine action
Mahrosa Abdulmuneer is a searcher, who works to rid areas of explosive ordnance. To sharpen her skills, she has participated in every training course and capacity-building opportunity.
“As a mother of two kids, I believe that my work is contributing to providing safe areas for children to play around and live their childhood and make nice memories,” she says.
“I’m saving another life on my land”
Maha Jamal, a member of the Explosive Hazard Management Team, has enrolled in capacity enhancement initiatives throughout the last three years to advance her knowledge and skills.
She joined the mine action sector because of seeing the direct effect of mine action on people’s lives.
“I feel proud and happy when I discover and remove an explosive item knowing that I’m saving another life on my land,” says Ms. Jamal.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has intensified efforts to close the gender gap in political leadership across the subregion, with a fresh push to achieve at least 30 percent female representation in national parliaments and decision-making bodies.
Through the ECOWAS Female Parliamentarian Association (ECOFEPA), women lawmakers have launched a mentorship initiative to groom over 200 emerging young women leaders from West Africa and the Sahel, aimed at building their confidence, political skills, and readiness to participate in governance.
Themed “Strengthening Women’s Role in Political Parties and Parliaments in West Africa and the Sahel,” the session, held at the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja, marked a major step in advancing gender equality and nurturing the next generation of women in governance across member states.
- Gender equality has suffered since the pandemic began.
- It will now take an estimated 135.6 years to close the worldwide gender gap between men and women.
- However, progress is being made in areas including science and politics.
- Improving paternity policies and representation of women will help.
There is still a huge amount of work to do to achieve gender equality around the world.
The time it will take to close the gender gap grew by 36 years in just 12 months, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021. This means it will now take an estimated 135.6 years for men and women to reach parity, according to the report, which assesses areas including economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and political empowerment.
Click here to read the full article published by The World Economic Forum on 3 March 2022.
This report and accompanying policy brief is intended to trigger a UN ‘rethink’ about women’s participation in transitional justice at both the policy and programme levels.
Fundamentally, ‘meaningful’ women’s participation in transitional justice does not only involve women being present—instead, it involves the convergence of several elements and manifests when women from diverse backgrounds: have the ability to enter; are present; possess self-efficacy; deploy their agency; and exert influence over transitional justice processes.
It recommends several adjustments for UN policy and programming—both in general and in relation to the updating of the UN Secretary-General’s 2010 Guidance Note on transitional justice—to better promote women’s meaningful participation in transitional justice.
Click here to access the report.
This report assesses women’s access to justice and women’s political participation in parliament, local councils and civil society organisations in Colombia. It examines existing legal, political and institutional frameworks in order to better understand successes, challenges and implementation gaps in the government’s pursuit of access to justice and gender equality. The report also offers examples of different approaches in OECD member and partner countries to support Colombia in closing gender gaps. Based on this analysis, the report proposes actionable solutions to help Colombia design and deliver policies that effectively promote women’s political participation and access to justice, including for survivors of gender based violence.
Click here to download the full report published by the OECD on 11 July 2020.
In 2016 at the launch of the #NotTheCost campaign, NDI presented a list of strategies to address and prevent violence against women in politics, focusing on a wide range of potential change-makers, from the global to the grassroots levels. While a deeper understanding of the issue has emerged, new problems have arisen. The world is grappling with a global pandemic. Many countries have seen their democratic institutions severely weakened. Technological innovations have created new contexts and means of perpetrating violence against women. On the fifth anniversary of the #NotTheCost campaign, NDI is renewing its call to action and presenting new opportunities to end both prevailing and newly emerging types of violence against women in politics. In the 2021 call to action, NDI identifies new opportunities to end both prevailing and newly emerging types of violence against women in politics.
Click here to read the full report.
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) organized the conference "Promoting the political participation of women with disabilities" in Vienna on 16 and 17 April 2018. The event was held as part of ODIHR’s project “Our right to participate – Promoting the participation of Persons with Disabilities in political and public life (Phase II)”, implemented across the OSCE region.
The conference served as a platform to raise awareness about the limited participation of women with disabilities in political life across the OSCE region and to identify positive measures which can facilitate more diverse and inclusive democratic institutions and parliaments. It explored ways to strengthen linkages between the women’s movement and the disability movement, drawing on common experiences, challenges and opportunities.
Click here to read the meeting report.
Inclusive politics remains an elusive goal in Pakistan, which has a history of military interference in governance institutions, unstable elected governments and internecine conflict. Women’s voices, within the corridors of power or as constituents whose interests must be accounted for, have been weak but are growing stronger.
Activism, led by the women’s movement and civil society advocacy groups since the 1980s, has yielded results. The state has opened up democratic spaces to women in elected legislatures and local bodies through an expanded reserved seats quota; and recently legislators revised electoral rules to mandate a minimal level of women’s greater inclusion as candidates and voters.
This paper aims to contribute to the growing body of literature around how feminist mobilisation and political voice leads to progressive policy outcomes. It does this through exploring three questions:
How did the women’s movement lead to the decision to restore and increase the quota for women in elected bodies?
How have women used their elected positions, and worked in caucuses, to promote their interests? What other measures will further strengthen their political voice?
Can we gain insight into pro-women policymaking by looking at women’s activism, political voice, and other factors within a broader contextual framework to identify patterns that may predict further progress?
Click here to see the paper.