Outcome CHN_O_2

Advancing Partnership & Resources: UN Women China office effectively leverages and expands its partnership, communications and advocacy capabilities to increase support for and financing the gender equality agenda, while securing sustainable resourcing for the delivery of its own mandate.

In 2023, UN Women in China continued to strengthen partnerships with the public and private sector in support of UN Women’s mandate and operations in China. Regular communications and exchanges of information was established with key line ministries of the Government of China (GoC), while multiple line ministries, entities and local counterparts have been proactively engaged in programs, policy engagements as well as advocacy in topics include major legislation amendment, women’s economic empowerment, climate change, science & technology and EVAW; Private sector partners were engaged for mobilizing resources and/or technical support to UN Women’s operation in China, and also for applying GEWE practices and norms and standards into their business engagements and operations; Strategic partnerships with financial institutions and policy think tanks were forged to untap the market and opportunities on niche topics such as gender finance; Partnerships with women’s organizations including foundations were strengthened to ensure that tailored technical assistance were delivered to those women and girls in need who had faced challenges. Effectively engaged partners from the GoC, Member States, CSOs, private sector and academia by engaging them on CSW67 and IWD advocacy efforts. Furthermore, we effectively expanded our communications and advocacy capabilities for gender equality agenda through several key aspects, incl. expanded and strengthened communications channels, strategic partnerships with wider partners to reach different target audiences, enhanced media relationship and monitoring effort, and more human-interest stories and knowledge sharing. In August 2023, UN Women China launched our official X account , accumulating 37,300 impressions in the first 4 months. In September 2023, we’ve also launched our fully upgraded UN Women China bilingual website , featuring our office introduction, highlights, and voices from women and girls’ beneficiaries. In 2023, we have produced 266 articles and posts in total. The posts and key campaign hashtags have attracted an estimated around 1.6 billion views across Weibo and WeChat. With the support from UN Women China, Bayang, a 22-year-old female environmentalist and a member of Sanjiangyuan Women Environmentalists Network, was recognized as one of the 2023 “ BBC 100 Women ”, acknowledging her contribution to tackling climate change at the grassroots level. On International Women’s Day 2023, our #DigitALL campaign attracted 20 million views and sparked around 10,000 online discussions across multiple platforms. During the annual 16 Days campaign, UN Women also initiated a creative gesture dance video and mobilized the UN system in China for joint actions on ending violence against women and girls. Representatives from 13 Agencies participated in the video recording, demonstrating solidarity towards a culture of zero tolerance of violence. The video received a total of 310,000 views across different platforms. In 2023, 5 knowledge products and 4 programme brochures were published. Led by UN Women, representatives from 10 UN agencies had a joint visit to the HEPS labs. A roundtable conversation was organized together with Institute of HEPS of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University celebrating the key role of female leadership and contribution in the STEM field, also raising awareness on barriers hindering women and girls’ full participation in digital era.

Advancing Partnership & Resources: UN Women China office effectively leverages and expands its partnership, communications and advocacy capabilities to increase support for and financing the gender equality agenda, while securing sustainable resourcing for the delivery of its own mandate.

UN Women China significantly strengthened its partnerships, communications, and advocacy efforts to deliver on its normative, UN coordination, and operational mandates. The office more than doubled its partnerships from 12 to over 25. Notably, it fostered 11 financial partnerships and received $1.95m in 2024. This includes a partnership with Citibank to launch of an innovative financing modality that will provide more sustainable funding to the office. To advance normative support, the office engaged diverse partners to ensure inclusive participation in intergovernmental processes and major events/convenings (e.g. CSW68, IWD, 16 Days, etc.). Notably, the office signed two MoUs with the Chinese government and an academic institution, enabling it to further influence policy research and normative change for embedding GEWE into China’s South-South Cooperation and sustainable finance efforts. The office also partnered with the China Association for NGO Cooperation to host a briefing and CSO consultation, resulting in the successful participation of 11 Chinese CSOs in the APAC Ministerial Conference on Beijing+30. To advance UN coordination, the office partnered with UNICEF, UNDP, and ILO to engage Chinese companies with oversea businesses to ensure their business conduct contributes to global SDG attainment. To advance operational support, the office deepened partnerships with over 10 national/subnational partners to increase their GEWE awareness and to help implement local programmes. The office provided $330,068 to support six CSOs and signed over 30 new companies onto the Women’s Empowerment Principles (+8% increase). Lastly, the office expanded its online footprint by growing the number of followers on Weibo to over 612,000 (+3%) , WeChat to over 50,670 (+13%), and Twitter/X to over 370 (+48%), garnering over 18.3million views in 2024. The office expanded its communications and advocacy capabilities by advancing its omnichannel, new partnerships to reach more audiences, enhanced media monitoring efforts, and more human-interest stories and knowledge-sharing. For example, on IWD2024, UN Women partnered with CIDCA and the Center for China and Globalization to co-convene a high-level policy symposium on innovative ways to bridge the financial gender gap and achieve the SDGs. As a result, the symposium engaged over 30 organizations and attracted over 60,000 online views. The broader IWD online campaign – in partnership with the China National Academy of Paintings to create culturally-resonant art and with the participation of 17 UN agencies, 8 programme partners, and 2 UN Women National Goodwill Ambassadors – garnered over 9 million views and sparked over 16,500 social media discussions. To strengthen the media’s understanding of GEWE, the office supported the participation of two senior journalists (Ms. Tian Wei, TV Anchor from CGTN and Ms. Ge Huichao, Body On-and-On) in the APAC Ministerial Conference on Beijing+30 to share China’s practices and opportunities for joint actions leading up to Beijing+30.

Increased engagement of partners in support of UN-Women’s mandate

Important progress has been made on this outcome. UN Women China’s negotiations and coordination with the People’s Republic of China for official country office status and nodal ministry is still ongoing via various channels, including through the Executive Director’s office, with the office contributing to talking points in her consultation with the Permanent Mission of China. The shift from a Programme Presence to a Country Office internally within the UN System and the Delegation of Authority (DoA) that comes with it, is an important step to achieving that goal, although much work needs to be done and is reliant on internal partners at UN Women headquarters. On the partnerships side, UN Women signed an important partnership agreement with the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), the first partnership with the government in the Country Office since 2014 and one that also involves The China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchange (CICETE), a specialized project management agency for promoting multilateral and bilateral economic and technical exchanges and international development cooperation, who serve as a payment passthrough. The introduction to, and work with CICETE, also opens the door to working on areas such as gender responsive procurement, an area the office intends to work on with UNDP and CICETE in 2022. The office has also signed a partnership with the Xiamen Marathon, where UN Women will be able to fundraise through the runner quota and get billboards, a separate stage for advocacy and monetization. Unfortunately the marathon has been postponed to Q2 2022 due to COVID-19 restrictions. On the resource mobilization front, the long overdue $1m partnership with the Alipay Foundation for the digital empowerment of women-owned SMEs has finally been sealed. The project will primarily be implemented in China and Indonesia and includes alliance-building and research components at the regional level. Meanwhile, the office has produced bilingual pitch decks, brochures, and a partnership strategy to help accelerate partnerships and resource mobilization. On the other hand, the office has been unable to mobilize more resources as originally planned. Ambitions to work with on the winter Olympics are unrealized. Individual giving has not been as successful as planned, and lessons learned suggest that it is not a worthwhile endeavor unless UN Women institutionally commits manifold resources to it like UNICEF and UNHCR. The resources mobilized from the Chinese government’s South South Cooperation Assistance Fund (SSCAF) remains stuck and the legal gridlock has lasted two years. Forays into cause related marketing (CRM) have not worked out, although it has resulted in market benchmarks for future CRM initiatives. Engagement with new partners such as high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and gaming companies have had to be postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Increased engagement of partners in support of UN-Women’s mandate

In 2022, all teams within UN Women China CO has actively engaged wide range of partners in support of UN Women's mandate and operations in China. Government partners have been engaged in advocacy events and programs in topics include major legislation amendment, women’s economic empowerment, climate change, EVAW, and peacekeeping. Private sector partners were reached and mobilized to provide financial and/or technical support to UN Women’s operation in China, or to improve their own internal governance and external practices for them to be more gender responsive, to contribute to GEWE. Consultations were carried out with CSOs partners, especially women-led organizations, to understand challenges they face as well as their needs, and leveraged private sector partner to provide capacity development for CSOs. UN Women also provided opportunities for women-led organization, especially the ones work with vulnerable women, for them to better showcase their work to wider audience. Consider media’s important role and their impact on the general public, UN Women held workshop with 30 journalists, editors, key opinion leaders and PR agency staff and discussed what media could do to stop gender bias and discrimination and to advance gender equality in reporting. As of 2022, UN Women has also introduced a professional media monitoring system to track mentions of our work in Chinese media. Our team uses new data and insights for analysis of the media landscape as well as reporting and evaluation. In March, 17 UN partners, Goodwill Ambassadors and influencers were mobilized to support our communications efforts during our signature IWD (International Women's Day) campaign.