Outcome RWA_D_1.3

Implementation of gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments strengthened at national and local levels

UN Women’s contributions in 2024 advanced key regional and global gender equality commitments, including the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) by supporting gender mainstreaming, stakeholder collaboration and accountability at both national and local levels for the implementation of the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1). A key achievement was supporting the Gender Monitoring Office (GMO) in launching Gender-Responsive Village Mechanisms across all districts of the Southern Province. These mechanisms engaged village committees in implementing gender equality and women’s empowerment interventions, fostering gender accountability at the grassroots level. The intervention resulted in common understanding of roles and responsibilities of the different actors for the effective implementation, resulting in enhanced partnerships among local authorities, civil society, and other key stakeholders. This also contributed to the increased participation of women in decision-making processes, particularly in addressing gender-based violence (GBV) and promoting gender equality within communities. UN Women Country Office supported the Gender Monitoring Office (GMO) to develop the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) +30 National Progress Report through participatory consultations to evaluate progress across twelve critical areas, offering recommendations to sustain achievements and accelerate SDG Goal. It highlights efforts to close the gender gap in education, reduce poverty among women and girls, and improve access to clean energy. Strategic priorities focus on STEM education for women and advancing economic empowerment beyond financial inclusion. These insights informed the development of national policies such as the NST II and will inform efforts to accelerate the realization of gender equality in line with global and regional commitments. The timely completion and submission of the report to the global BPfA secretariat set example of Rwanda's commitment to global GEW norms. UN Women’s technical support has strengthened Rwanda’s coordination and normative frameworks, positioning it as a thought leader and convener in gender equality. In 2024, UN Women supported Rwanda's preparations for and participation in the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 68 which was preceded by the development of a refined national position on gender equality, particularly focusing on poverty alleviation and financing gender equality. The side event, organized by UN Women Rwanda in collaboration with UN Women Offices and Governments of Rwanda, Uganda, and Cameroon, highlighted the importance of innovative financing approaches and promoted tools such as Gender-Responsive Budgeting (GRB). These discussions provided key lessons to Rwanda towards the adoption of new financing models for gender-responsive development, further fostering partnerships and collaboration on gender equality at the regional level.

Implementation of gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments strengthened at national and local levels

UN Women has been contributing to the implementation of the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) through mainstreaming some of its key sectors through evidence-based decision making. It is increasingly investing both financial and technical to promote gender mainstreaming and gender accountability and guide stakeholders to assess the current status and set realistic targets. The CO supported the National Gender Machinery in the development of the Gender Mainstreaming and Accountability Minimum Standards (GMASs). The GMASs provides an essential framework that will guide all gender mainstreaming and accountability efforts across the country and ensure effective integration of gender equality and women’s empowerment across sectors contributing to the implementation of the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1). In addition, the Ministry, in collaboration with its partners and with UN Women support developed the 3rd generation of the National Action Plan (NAP) 2023-2027 for the UNSCR 1325. Furthermore, a second generation of the Country Gender Status Report ‘The State of Gender Equality in Rwanda: Ensuring Gender Equality Gains from Sustainable Transformation’, was produced with UN Women support of UNWOMEN. This report on the status of gender equality in Rwanda traces the levels parity that exists in different circumstances as guided by the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) pillars: economic, social and governance transformation. It highlights the fundamental issues, challenges and opportunities facing the men and women as they shape their livelihood strategies in Rwanda while also proposing programmatic interventions that can be instrumental in informing interventions to reduce the gender equality gaps. UN Women continued to support the functioning of the National Coordination Mechanism on Gender through the National Gender and Family Cluster (NGFC) by ensuring efficient coordination and strengthening the technical capacity of its secretariat so as to effectively deliver on national and global gender equality commitments as well as to utilize partner efforts to improve gender-related interventions. As such, the different Sub-clusters under the NGFC including Family Promotion and GBV Prevention sub-cluster, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and Child Development were strengthened to address pertinent issues and plan key interventions related to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The stakeholders under these sub-clusters include Government institutions, Development partners, Civil Society and Faith-Based Organizations. Furthermore, policy advice, programming and informed advocacy were strengthened through the availed and updated gender data that were produced by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda with technical support of UN Women. Rwanda has achieved a ground-breaking milestone with the use of digital technology to conduct the 5th Population and Housing Census survey reducing the analysis period from 2 years to 6 months. The successful implementation of the 5th Rwanda Population and Housing Census, the first-ever digital census in Rwanda, demonstrates the country's commitment to harnessing technology to improve data accuracy and efficiency. As a result of UN Women technical support through the One UN Joint programme on Data, the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) Gender-disaggregated data has been strengthened, enabling policymakers to develop gender-sensitive policies and programs. In addition, the gender data from the 5th Population and Housing Census 2022 informed Rwanda’s second voluntary national review (VNR) report on SDGs implementation which was presented to the UN in July 2023.The data will inform the development of the next generation National Strategy for Transformation (NST2) and development partner's strategies including, United National Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF, 2024-2031) and UN Women Strategic Note 2025-2029. UN Women initiated the collective process, bringing together isolated interventions by some DPs and contributing to the gender policy brief “Strengthening Gender Accountability in Rwanda’s National Strategy for Transformation”. The Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF), as the institution that plays the major role of coordinating policy implementation, monitoring GEWE, led this process and submitted the policy brief to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) which oversees the work of the development partners and is in charge of the country’s development agenda. The policy brief encapsulates key issues and challenges pertaining to gender equality and women’s empowerment in Rwanda and proposes key gender related priorities and outcomes to be integrated in the next generation of NST in order to accelerate and scale GEWE interventions at sustainable paces. Furthermore, the brief also serves a basis for the stakeholders’ engagement process through consultations in order to gain their insights and capitalize on their existing GEWE knowledge, expertise and experiences to enable formulation of most relevant and agreeable priority areas to be considered for integration in development of the next NST.

Implementation of gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments strengthened at national and local levels

UN Women Rwanda in 2022, made strong advancements in the implementation of gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments at national and local levels. As such, the capacity of Gender machinery institutions were strengthened with UN Women technical and financial support to effectively coordinate and oversee gender mainstreaming at national and local levels. UN Women continued to provide technical assistance to these Institutions by availing technical hands-on support that facilitated the coordination, and improved delivery on gender commitments, quality assurance and oversight of these institutions at different levels. Rwanda Women Parliamentary Forum (FFRP) secretariat benefited from the provision of technical support on its day-to-day functioning which is instrumental in conceiving and operationalizing FFRP plans and programmes of action. In this regard, FFRP was also financially supported to implement planned interventions that strengthened gender responsive oversight and accountability of Parliamentarians through community oversight as well as expanding strategic partnerships with other stakeholders involved in gender promotion and women empowerment at national, regional and international levels. UN Women has also supported the functioning of the National Coordination Mechanism on Gender through the National Gender and Family Cluster (NGFC) by ensuring efficient coordination and strengthening the technical capacity of its secretariat so as to effectively deliver on national and global gender equality commitments as well as to utilize partner efforts to improve gender-related interventions. Moreover, in this reporting period, UN Women strengthened different Sub-clusters under the NGFC including Family Promotion and GBV Prevention sub-cluster, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and Child Development to bring together actors who intervene in these sub-clusters to discuss pertinent issues and plan key interventions related to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The stakeholders under these sub-clusters include Government institutions, Development partners, Civil Society and Faith-Based Organizations. Furthermore, GBV prevention and response coordination mechanism was strengthened at the local level through UN Women’s financial support to the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF). Provincial coordination meetings were organized in different provinces including the City of Kigali under the Leadership of the Minister of Gender and persisting issues were discussed that resulted in a commitment by local government leaders to ensure the development of joint action plans are in place and implemented by districts. Furthermore, policy advices, programming and informed advocacy were strengthened through the availed and updated gender data that were produced by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda with technical support of UN Women. As such two gender statistics reports were produced namely (1) National Gender Statistics Report 2021 with gender-specific data in twelve different development areas including governance, economic empowerment, EVAW, etc. and (2) Gender thematic report from the Establishment/Business census of 2020 with data on women ownership of businesses, their sizes, working capital, annual turnover, etc. The data will inform the development of the next National Strategy for Transformation (NST2, 2024-2031) and development partner's strategies including, United National Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF, 2024-2031) and UN Women Strategic Note 2025-2029. In addition, Gender Monitoring Office (GMO), with support from UN Women and in collaboration with several partners and stakeholders that include ministries and government agencies, CSOs as well as development partners organized and conducted the Gender Accountability Day (GAD) events in the Northern, Eastern, and Southern Provinces. This GAD was organized under the theme “Gender accountability, a driver for inclusive and transformative Governance”. One of the key achievements of the GAD is the development of the gender profile of one of the participating districts (Gicumbi district) which indicates the district’s increased commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of women. The gender profile will be used to inform the planning and decision-making of different partners in the district. It will also instruct the district in gender-inclusive and transformative planning and decision-making in the future. The gender profiling exercise captured some of the significant players and stakeholders in Gicumbi District that have innovatively and inclusively contributed to the promotion of gender equality and women empowerment in different sectors and domains. This exercise however, revealed a gap in collecting sex-disaggregated/gender-relevant data at the district level and it is recommended that collection and analysis of gender-relevant disaggregated data be embraced to facilitate evidence-based decision-making that takes into account the needs of women and men in the district. Furthermore, with UN Women support, 148 staff (79 males and 69 females) from Government Ministries in the infrastructure and agriculture sectors, as well as districts’ focal persons including directors of good governance, National Women’s Council elected coordinators at sector level, chairpersons of the Economic Commission of the district councils and the Directors of One Stop Center committed to ensuring that all plans and budgets including the gender budget statements are gender-responsive. This was a result of capacity-building sessions in Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and Gender Economic Policy Management Initiatives (GEPMI) for them to execute gender-responsive development strategies, sector strategies, district development plans and budgets at national and local levels.

Implementation of gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments strengthened at national and local levels

UN Women has been contributing to the implementation of the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) through mainstreaming some of its key sectors. Above all, evidence-based gender sensitive decision making as well as Gender Responsive Budgeting are the two practices that UN Women is increasingly investing into on both financial and technical side for the two areas to drive the rest of the NST1 sectors as far as gender mainstreaming is concerned. More gender thematic Reports from national surveys are produced, disseminated, and used in decision making. The Government of Rwanda through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) has reported on the the UNDP and UN Women led global platform reporting on SDG indicator 5.C.1 (proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment) which indicated that the UN Women championed and promoted Gender Responsive Budgeting has become well institutionalized in Rwanda. Gender and evidence based decision making though gender data and gender responsive budgeting principles constitute enabling factors that facilitate the Government of Rwanda to meet or keep the right track to implement and remain accountable on key gender normative frameworks.