Impact 1: Governance and participation in public life

Just a few years before she was elected as a Member of the Zanzibar House of Representatives (ZHoR), Zawadi Amour Nassor didn’t have political aspirations, but life had bigger plans for her. Today, she represents the Konde constituency of Northern Pemba, where the Representative seat had previously only been held by men.

As a first-time contestant without much political experience, Nassor – a former teacher, was an avid advocate on ending violence against women and girls. Too often, she would see cases that either went unreported by survivors, or where perpetrators were not held to account due to gaps in the legal system. Read more >

En 2009, 2013 y 2017 las dinámicas políticas en Honduras fueron conflictivas durante los procesos electorales. Esta conflictividad se expresó a través de movilizaciones sociales y de organizaciones políticas que en muchos casos se volvieron violentas.

Organizaciones internacionales señalaron preocupación por el uso de fuerza, amenazas, violencia y criminalización que impactó en violaciones a los derechos humanos de la población por parte de actores gubernamentales. Leer más >

UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific addresses emerging non-traditional security issues such as climate insecurity, cybersecurity, and technologies. Through the project Women, Peace and Cybersecurity: Promoting Women’s Peace and Security in the Digital World, UN Women is supporting meaningful participation of women in cybersecurity decision-making processes, in the prevention of cyber threats and crimes, and their contribution to cybersecurity governance and digital peacebuilding processes while ensuring that related laws and policies are conflict-sensitive and gender-responsive. UN Women established a civil society network consisting of 19 women civil society representatives and defenders of digital rights across Southeast Asia to support women’s leadership in cyber-related fields by facilitating regional knowledge exchange and leveraging collaboration among champions. Laying the foundation for joint policy advocacy for gender-responsive cybersecurity, the network was supported by UN Women to identify key recommendations for policymakers to consider in ensuring that cyber-related laws, policies and action plans are inclusive, rights-based and responsive to women’s needs. The recommendations were compiled into an advocacy brief which has been at the centre of numerous high-level policy dialogues on this topic. For instance, the recommendations outlined in the advocacy brief were presented at the national-level cybersecurity policy dialogue in Thailand, and their applicability to the Thai policy environment was discussed. These results have leveraged opportunities for women civil society leaders in Southeast Asia to transform national and regional cybersecurity policy- and decision-making while advancing gender equality and women's empowerment through multisectoral strategies, and action plans, where the importance of leveraging women’s leadership in the governance of cyberspace and technological development has been at the core of UN Women’s efforts. Through capacity-enhancing initiatives, the project has equipped women and young women to be more resilient towards online harms and threats while raising awareness of the gendered nature of cyberspace and its implications for the WPS agenda. Through this project, 176 persons (78 per cent women) across Southeast Asia increased their knowledge of gendered cybersecurity concerns, while 298 persons (73 per cent women) h increased their digital literacy skills by the end of 2022. Moreover, significant progress can be seen at the policy level as a result of the project, with the recognition of cybersecurity as a key emerging security issue for ASEAN Member States to consider through the adoption of the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action for Women, Peace and Security, following UN Women’s provision of technical support to the drafting process. This has sparked a national-level interest among States across Southeast Asia to discuss gender and cybersecurity, as well as cybersecurity in the context of women, peace and security.

Web story: Vietnamese Youth Organize Creative Projects to Advocate for a Safe and Equal Cyberspace  

Web story: UN Women Enhances Partner Organizations’ Capacities through a Women, Peace and Cybersecurity Workshop

Advocacy brief – Cybersecurity in the context of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (English and Thai)

UN Women Project Webpage: Women, Peace and Cybersecurity

The enhanced participation of women in public life can bring transformative changes to their communities. Women want to be actively engaged in local decision-making processes and they have proved that they can drive positive results when in top political positions, believes Sofia Maksymenko. She is the self-help group leader and newly elected head of Zvanivka, a community in the conflict-affected Donetsk oblast located near the contact line. Sofia is one of the 72 women members of self-help groups from conflict-affected Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions who ran in the 2020 local elections. Read more >

Asmaa Emam, a 25-year-old divorced woman with two children, is one of the beneficiaries of the National Women’s Citizenship Initiative "Your ID, Your Rights”. Asmaa lives with her mother in the village of Qalamshah, Fayoum Governorate.

The National Women’s Citizenship Initiative "Your ID, Your Rights" is implemented by the National Council for Women and is in part supported by UN Women Egypt through the generous support of the Government of the United Kingdom. The Women’s Citizenship Initiative seeks to enhance women’s access to national ID cards and to raise their awareness about the services available so that they can perform their social, economic, and political role in society. Read more >