UN Women

What is UN Women?

UN Women stands for the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. It is the UN’s dedicated agency working to promote gender equality and women’s rights globally.

Formation Established: July 2010 by the UN General Assembly.

Became operational: January 2011. Reason for creation: To consolidate and strengthen efforts that were earlier spread across different UN bodies dealing with women’s issues (such as UNIFEM, DAW, INSTRAW, and OSAGI).

Mandate & Objectives

UN Women works on: Eliminating discrimination against women and girls. Empowering women socially, politically, and economically. Achieving gender equality as both a goal and a foundation for sustainable development.

Key Areas of Work Leadership & Political Participation:

Supporting women in decision-making and governance. Economic Empowerment: Promoting equal pay, workplace rights, and entrepreneurship.

Ending Violence Against Women: Advocacy, legal reforms, and survivor support.

Peace & Security: Ensuring women’s role in peace negotiations, conflict resolution, and recovery.

Humanitarian Action: Gender-sensitive responses in crises.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Especially SDG 5 (Gender Equality). Global Campaigns & Initiatives HeForShe (2014): A solidarity movement encouraging men and boys to support gender equality.

UNiTE to End Violence against Women: A global advocacy campaign.

Generation Equality Forum (2021): Multi-stakeholder platform to accelerate gender equality. Structure & Leadership Headquartered in New York, USA. Governed by a multi-country executive board (with 41 member states). Led by an Executive Director (as of 2025: Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan). Funding Relies on voluntary contributions from UN member states, private sector, and foundations.

Source:https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/stories/feature-story/2025/09/beyond-borders