Results at a Glance

Engendering the humanitarian response

UN Women has long engaged for the inclusion of women’s needs, contributions and capacities in humanitarian programming and emergency response.  In 2009, UN Women, in cooperation with OCHA and GenCap, carried out a gender needs assessment following the Israeli military operation Cast Lead.  This resulted in the first guidebook targeting humanitarian actors in Gaza and providing them with guidance on gender analysis, planning and programming to assist in designing and monitoring their interventions. Following the Israeli Pillar Cloud military operation in Gaza in 2012, UN Women, in cooperation with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and Aisha Association, carried out focus group discussions with Gazan women in an attempt to incorporate women’s needs and expectations of humanitarian response within a rapid inter-agency assessment.

Since 2013, UN Women has strengthened its engagement and support in the humanitarian planning process, working notably in close partnership with OCHA and facilitating the deployment of a gender advisor to OCHA, with funding from the Governments of Spain and Canada, to support the 2014 humanitarian programme cycle. This has positively resulted in the inclusion of two coordination performance indicators in the humanitarian Strategic Response Plan for 2014 that are derived directly from the Gender Marker.

Making women’s voices heard in peace and state-building processes

Supporting the demand of Palestinian movement to increase their participation as peace mediators and negotiators and in conflict resolution initiatives, UN Women has facilitated two Open Day meetings between women’s organizations and the Office of the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO). These meetings, which continue to occur on a regular basis, offer the opportunity for women’s organizations and activists to channel their demands to the highest decision making level of UN, as a way to ensure that gender equality commitments in conflict, peace and humanitarian responses are heard and accounted for.