Outcome BRA_O_1

To drive more effective and efficient United Nations system coordination on gender equality and women’s empowerment

In the reporting year, the UN System Coordination is more effective and efficient in its performance on gender and race equality, with intersectional approach. As leader of the Interagency Thematic Group on Gender, Race and Ethnicity (IATG-GRE) and co-leader of the CCA/UNSDCF Task Force, the UN Women Brazil CO contributed with coordination, advocacy and technical assistance. The IATG-GRE was more strategically positioned to support the UNCT on enhancing its accountability for gender and racial equality. Led by the CO, its roles, responsibilities and priorities were better aligned with the UN Reform and national priorities, in addition to the improvement of its functioning, with robust work plan and dedicated budget. The challenge of smooth coordination of subgroups led by different UN entities was overcome through close alignment with the Resident Coordinator (RC) and the UNCT. The strengthened IATG-GRE and the CO’s leadership led to a more strategic work on gender and race equality and better performance of the UNCT, that increased its scoring in three out of five UNCT-SWAP performance indicators assessed this year. The 2020 UNCT-SWAP Gender and Race Equality continues to represent the key accountability framework that guides the UNCT work, as result of CO’s advocacy and technical assistance. The preparatory process for elaboration of the new Cooperation Framework (CF) incorporated gender and race perspectives, as result of the CO advocacy and technical assistance. The UNSDPF 2017-2022 final evaluation and the CCA elaboration processes benefited from a more comprehensive and data-driven gender analysis with intersectional approach provided by UN Women and the IATG-GRE. The CO strengthened the recognition of women’s rights as human rights and the racial intersectional approach and promoted a solid understanding of the concept of women human rights defenders (WHRD), leading it to become a significant area of joint work. Through the IATG-GRE, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) now have strengthened capacities to engage with human rights mechanisms which resulted in the submission of a written contribution by Brazilian indigenous women to the CEDAW next general recommendation. Facilitated dialogues with CSOs and information and data on WHRDs in Brazil produced by the CO subsidized the work of the UNCT and of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, who submitted a communication to the Brazilian government in October.

To drive more effective and efficient United Nations system coordination on gender equality and women’s empowerment

In 2022, the UNCT demonstrated an increased capacity for a coordinated action on advancing gender, race and ethnicity equality, as well as applying intersectionality of human rights and gender equality. UNCT met or exceeded minimum requirements in 40 per cent of the System-wide Action Plan (SWAP) on Gender and Race Equality scorecard performance indicators, which represented a 33 per cent increase comparing to 2021. The progress was attributed to the consistency and quality of the technical guidance and capacity development support provided under UN Women leadership by the Interagency Thematic Group on Gender, Race and Ethnicity (IATG-GRE). The group’s efforts focused on increased effectiveness and alignment with the newly launched UN Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG) guidelines for Gender Theme Groups, clarification of roles and responsibilities between RC, UNCT, Heads of Agencies and the members of the IATG-GRE, knowledge building on practical aspects of mainstreaming gender and racial equality in the CCA, UNSCDF planning and development and focus on respective accountability frameworks and human rights commitments. The IATG-GRE also prioritized increased efficiency and focus on the implementation of the priority actions of the SWAP Plan, prioritizing key strategic joint UNCT activities, such as those related to the UNSCDF drafting, advocacy with the civil society and other stakeholders, as well as internal capacity development. The efforts resulted in a more focused and feasible plan of actions owned by the group and the UNCT (78 per cent reduction comparing to 2021). Another notable result achieved in 2022 was that the UNSDCF design process integrated gender equality, race, ethnicity, and intersectionality of human rights perspectives. The UN Women leadership, expertise and the focused IATG-GRE action were pivotal to the quality of the Common Country Analysis, with gender, racial and human rights-based analysis consistently integrated across all sectors, using disaggregated data and the international human rights treaties, in comparison with the last CCA. Through the process of UNSDCF results framework drafting, UN Women with the inputs by IATG-GRE, provided methodological guidance to the Pillar groups and the Programme Management Team compilation of the national and sectoral policies and programmes on gender equality and human rights to inform the formulation of the Outcomes and Outputs (the UNSCDF will be finalized in 2023). Also, during the reporting year with the UN Women and OHCHR leadership the UNCT submitted the reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Universal Periodic Review, OHCHR report on racial justice and equality and to the report of the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the context of Law Enforcement. The IATG-GRE therefore played a fundamental role in UNCT performance on the human rights normative agenda.

To drive more effective and efficient United Nations system coordination on gender equality and women’s empowerment

In 2023, UNCT met or exceeded minimum requirements in 60 per cent of the UNCT-SWAP Gender and Race Equality scorecard performance indicators, which represented a 50 per cent increase comparing to 2022. The progress was attributed to its increased capacity for a coordinated action on advancing gender, race and ethnicity equality, as well as applying intersectionality of human rights, as a result of technical guidance and capacity development support provided by UN Women, including as leader of the Interagency Thematic Group on Gender, Race and Ethnicity (IATG-GRE). The group’s efforts focused on internal knowledge building on mainstreaming gender and racial equality in the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) cycle, mainly related to planning, monitoring and evaluation, and communications; and other key strategic UNCT-SWAP activities, such as advocacy with the government and civil society. Another notable result is that the UNSDCF 2023-2027, signed in August, visibly integrated gender, race and ethnicity across all outcomes, as a result of UNCT enhanced gender mainstreaming capacity through advocacy, technical support and capacity building initiatives implemented by UN Women. In 2023, in the context of a new government that openly supports gender equality and human rights, UN Women reinforced its advocacy to put gender, race and ethnic equality as a priority of the UNSDCF. Added to that, to ensure that the UNSDCF implementation is responsive to gender and racial equality, IATG-GRE members have been appointed as focal points of the UNSDCF Results Groups, as a result of UN Women advocacy. Also, the UNCT maintained its strong dialogue with UN human rights mechanisms on the implementation of international commitments made by Brazil, through the submission of reports with IATG-GRE support under the leadership of UN Women and OHCHR, as a result of UNCT’s increased capacity to collect and analyse data focused on gender, race and ethnicity. The UNCT submitted reports to the Human Rights Committee (on the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Committee Against Torture, and maintained dialogue with the Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement. Moreover, the UN System is well positioned to continue to make meaningful and coordinated contributions towards advancing human rights and gender equality in the scope of migration and refuge, as a result of the successful negotiation by UN Women of the new Joint Programme (JP) "Human Rights and Gender Equality in the National Policies on Migration, Asylum, and Statelessness in Brazil", in partnership with UNFPA and UNHCR. This new JP builds on the experience and lessons learnt from LEAP JP (2019-2021) and Moverse JP (2021-2023), with the same Donor, partnership configuration and focus on refugee and migrant women in Brazil.