Results at a Glance
UN Women envisages gender-responsive planning and budgeting as the cornerstones to effectively translate political commitments to women’s rights and empowerment into real progress. Accordingly, UN Women has actively engaged in the development of gender-responsive 2014-2016 national strategies and plans. In cooperation with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, UN Women supported the development of the capacities in key line ministries on gender responsive planning and budgeting, with specific trainings for planning and budgeting teams ahead of the development of the new planning cycle. UN Women also provided technical support to the Ministry of Planning and Administrative Development to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment priorities and strategies were reflected in the new national development plan, budget and monitoring and evaluation framework.
To improve implementation and secure finance for gender-equality, UN Women has facilitated the access of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the Local Aid Coordination Structure (LACS). As a full member, the ministry can now advocate for the funding and realization of national commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment directly with the aid community. Additionally, UN Women, in cooperation with the Local Aid Coordination Secretariat, developed a Gender Charter for the donor community, in an attempt to bolster funding for national gender equality and women’s empowerment priorities.
UN Women actively engaged during the development of the first-ever UNDAF for Palestine (2014-2016) and advocated for the inclusion of national gender equality and priorities. Each of the UNDAF outcomes has a gender-responsive output, most indicators are sex-disaggregated and four out of six outcomes have specific gender-sensitive indicators.
Together with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Ministry of Planning and Administrative Development, UN Women has worked to make women more visible through accurate data and information to inform policy and programmes. “Building Ties: Towards Integrated Strategies and Policies for Empowering Palestinian Women”, is a study carried out by the Institute of Women’s Studies of Birzeit University in cooperation with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Ministry of Planning and Administrative Development, together with UN Women. It provides the first comprehensive analysis of the situation of Palestinian women in the areas of health, education, social services, labor and employment, women’s assets, access to justice, political participation, access to the public sphere, and violence against women. The study was used as a basis for the development of the new Cross-Sectoral National Gender Strategy 2014-2016, and will serve as the baseline for the new national development plan.