Region:Asia Pacific
Current UN Women Plan Period Afghanisthan:2018-2022
World Bank Income Classification:Low Income
The World Bank classifies economies for analytical purposes into four income groups: low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high income. For this purpose it uses gross national income (GNI) per capita data in U.S. dollars, converted from local currency using the World Bank Atlas method, which is applied to smooth exchange rate fluctuations.
Least Developed Country:Yes
Since 1971, the United Nations has recognized LDCs as a category of States that are deemed highly disadvantaged in their development process, for structural, historical and also geographical reasons. Three criteria are used: per capita income, human assets, and economic vulnerability.
Gender Inequality Index:0.575
GII is a composite metric of gender inequality using three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market. A low GII value indicates low inequality between women and men, and vice-versa.
Gender Development Index:0.723
GDI measures gender inequalities in achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: health, education, and command over economic resources.
Population:209,497,025
Source of population data: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2022). World Population Prospects: The 2022 Revision
Male:19,976,265 (9.5%)
Female:189,520,760 (90.5%)
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_1.1
All people in Ethiopia enjoy the rights and capabilities to realize their potential in equality and with dignity.
The first outcome the Strategic Note 2021-2025, which is fully aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Cooperation Framework 2020-2025, aims at ensuring women and girls in Ethiopia realize their potential in equality and with dignity. To realize the goal of the outcome, UN Women continued to focus on addressing structural and normative barriers to women’s equality, protection and dignity and women’s and girls’ right to live free of violence, including in those related to violence and displacement, while operating in the enduring conflicts and humanitarian disasters in Ethiopia in 2022. There has been significant progress in developing policies, strategies, programs and systems to reduce gender inequality and combat VAWG in all its forms including conflict related sexual violence and other violence in crisis and conflict affected settings in Ethiopia, supported by UN Women. Therefore, following a year of intense drafting process and a series of consultations, the draft national policy on gender equality and women’s empowerment, which is aligned with the international, regional, and national commitments on GEWE that Ethiopia has entered its final stage and will be submitted for endorsement to the Council of Ministers in 2023. UN Women significantly contributed to the development of the policy as co-chair of the technical committee established to support the policy development process. UN Women support ensured that an inclusivity lens and participatory methodology was followed with government, civil society, women’s rights organizations (WROs), bilateral and multi-lateral partners throughout the process. UN Women facilitated the inclusion of the perspectives of the CSOs, WROs and self-help groups in the policy through organizing policy dialogues and preparation of policy briefs which served as critical inputs for the policy and regional consultations on the draft policy. In addition, multi-sectoral inputs from key sector ministries, UN agencies and development partners have been critical in the policy development process. In addition, UN Women significantly contributed towards advancing gender sensitive legislation. A key milestone in the development of a draft national policy on prevention and response to GBV has been achieved. This breakthrough policy in Ethiopia is the first step in addressing gaps in the normative and legal frameworks on prevention and response to violence against women and girls. It also responds to the global norms and international commitments that the country made. Furthermore, the policy is a result of UN Women’s and civil society years of advocacy, multi-partner coordination and technical support at different levels. UN Women played a key role in the development of the position paper on the need to adopt a comprehensive policy, based on a rapid assessment of GBV related national legislation, initiatives as well as their implementation status. UN Women under the leadership of the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare (MoWSA) has been coordinating the overall development of the policy on prevention and response to GBV and being an integral member of the technical working group (TWG), comprised of key government and non-government actors. UN Women in partnership with civil society advocated for the policy development process to be driven by the inclusivity lense in consultations with government, the House of People’s Representatives (HoPR), women rights organizations, intersectional and diverse CSOs, including women with disability association, pastoralist association, community members and private sectors. Moreover, UN Women contributed to the achievement of this outcome through supporting and promoting the establishment and strengthening of national and regional coordination mechanisms to address violence against women and children (VAWC). UN Women rendered the necessary financial and technical support to strengthen the national coordinating body (NCB) on prevention and response to VAWC . While formation of the NCB at federal level is remarkable, the establishment of parallel coordination bodies in Oromia and Somali regions has been a milestone. These coordination mechanisms are vital to ensure effective coordination among relevant stakeholders on the prevention and response of VAWC. In addition, through UN Women’s support, the Oromia Region ten-year strategic plan on VAWC which aim to accelerate evidence-based multi-sectoral actions to address VAWC and the five-year national strategy aims to address all forms of VAWC have been finalized. The five-year national strategy also is one of key components of the national policy on prevention and response to GBV. UN Women was also officially recognized by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for its support to the Ministry’s 2021-2022 plan specially for the support to strengthening the NCB and Crime Registration Management System (CRIMS). Further to this, UN Women continued its collaboration with UNICEF to strengthen the NCB and finalization of the national five years strategy, promoting the ‘One UN’ approach to complement interventions and deliver as one. The endorsement of both strategies will generate a new momentum around a multisectoral, multistakeholder coordination and action to ending VAWC. In 2022, multi-sectoral humanitarian frameworks , strategies and tools become more gender responsive ensuring equitable, safe, and dignified response and recovery mechanisms to enable women and girls who are affected by conflict, humanitarian crisis and displacement to rebuild their lives in sustainable ways, particularly focusing on those that are marginalized and vulnerable. Therefore, UN Women contributed to mainstreaming gender in the humanitarian response in Ethiopia. As a result, the published 2022 humanitarian response plan (HRP) for Ethiopia demonstrated increased integration of gender equality, specifically on women’s and girls’ needs in relation to gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health care services, although fell short on including women’s economic empowerment and livelihood support. As a results of increased gender integration in the humanitarian response plan, more female survivors of violence were able to access survivor-centred services critical to their health, protection, and recovery in 2022. UN Women contributed significantly towards the enhanced gender mainstreaming in the HRP, as a result of its leadership role and technical expertise in strongly positioning gender in humanitarian action in the humanitarian programme cycle (HPC) analysis working group through enhancing gender analysis, use of sex-and age disaggregated data and gender-targeted indicators. In 2022, UN Women continued to adhere to the theory of change for this outcome ensuring the cross thematic collaboration across among teams and enhanced coordination role of UN Women across the UN system in the country.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_1.2
All people in Ethiopia live in a cohesive, just, inclusive and democratic society.
The second outcome of the Strategic Note 2021-2025, which is fully aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Cooperation Framework 2020-2025, aims at promoting a cohesive, just, inclusive and democratic society in Ethiopia. Adhering to the theory of change of the Strategic Note 2021-2025, UN Women contributed to this outcome through strengthening democratic institutions, and the capabilities of rights holders to demand their rights. In 2022, UN Women focused on enhancing women’s leadership capabilities and effective participation in politics and public life; as well as women’s participation in conflict prevention, resolution, and peace building, humanitarian decision making and strengthening civil society in general and the women’s movement and organizations. In 2022, UN Women significantly contributed to advancing women’s representation and effective participation in inclusive democratic institutions, including through support of male leaders in this process. UN Women deepened its partnerships with duty bearers at national and regional levels as well as civil society organizations and women rights organizations to promote attitude, norms and practices advancing gender equality, in general, and women’s empowerment as leaders and decision makers, in particular. UN Women continued to challenge the deep rooted beliefs against women’s leadership role in the community, in partnership with CARE Ethiopia, through a signature approach of social accountability and action community dialogues. More than 2,800 members of the community have been reached through the 96 dialogues, as a step towards transforming discriminatory gender norms around women in leadership and enabling communities to take joint action to strengthen positive practices. Male community members now demonstrate increased willingness to encourage their female relatives and partners to take part in public meetings as well as share domestic care work allowing women to have more time to spend on public activities. In advancing women’s leadership, more than 800 women leaders, drawn from the legislative and executive branches of government of Ethiopia are now empowered to harness their voice, exercise their agency as well as influence governance institutions. As a result of UN Women strategy to scaling up programming in empowering women in leadership and politics, a mentorship opportunity has been provided to 109 newly appointed women leaders in Amhara region by linking them with 109 seasoned women leaders to inspire the new women leaders with more leadership confidence. As evidenced through testimonies of women leaders, the mentorship programme has been transformational in enhancing their decision-making and management competencies, expanding their professional networks and equipping them with problem solving skills as newly appointed women leaders and support other women leaders. “ After I took the training (Transformative Leadership for Gender Equality Training), there was a noticeable change in my work, and I was promoted to from woreda to zonal level, Women, Children and Youth Affairs Department ” – confirmed one woman leader who is now a Deputy Head of the Health Department of the South Gondor Zone in Amhara Region. Furthermore, building on the unique partnership with the Office of the President (OTP) of Ethiopia, UN Women was able to avail more opportunities for increasing women’s leadership at all levels, including women with disabilities and young women. UN Women continued to contribute to the UN’s shared effort to support the establishment of a gender and vulnerability responsive national peace architecture. The Government of Ethiopia, with the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs as the lead, has started the preparation of Ethiopia's first National Action Plan (NAP) on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) in 2022. UN Women's current Strategic Note places a strong focus on women, peace and security across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus programming and, therefore, UN Women has done strong groundwork, including advocacy, awareness raising and capacity-building of CSOs, government and media, to build a conducive environment for the development of the NAP. In 2022, UN Women made some progress in ensuring that civil society and women’s rights organizations (WROs) are now more able to meaningfully contribute and influence the policy environment and promote the Women, Peace and Security agenda at the national and local levels. Five national civil society organizations (Norwegian Church Aid, Ethiopian Mediation and Arbitration Center, Timran, Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations and Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association) influence the process of developing a National Action Plan (NAP) on the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR 1325) through their membership in the national technical committee on the NAP, which is led by the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs, with engagement and representation of other governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. The CSOs are formally invited and recognized members of the technical committee with an acknowledged role of ensuring the inclusion of diverse civil society throughout the process. UN Women has partnered with the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs setting up of the technical committee and inclusion of civil society in it. UN Women’s convening role has been critical in ensuring that CSOs are included and given an equal role in the committee. It is expected that with strong CSO engagement in the committee, the NAP development process will be more responsive to the needs of women, girls and grassroots groups throughout the country. UN Women continues to emphasize that quality gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data are integral aspects of achieving gender equality. The government of Ethiopia now is better able to track the implementation of the SDGs with increased availability of data and statistics, including gender statistics. This came as a result of UN Women instrumental support to the Ethiopian Statistical Services (ESS) and the Ministry of Planning and Development in increasing production, availability, accessibility and use of quality data and statistics through setting up the SDG Implementation and Progress Reporting Dashboard, development of the Voluntary National Review (VNR) 2022 as well as expanding its use in policy development, such as draft of the National Strategy on Statistics. In 2022, UN Women continued to adhere to the theory of change for this outcome bridging silos within the cross thematic collaboration to ensure women’s leadership and participation, accountability mechanisms and processes are in place to effectively redress violations of the rights of women and girls; their organizations and civil society as a whole will be more active and effective in claiming their rights, holding government to account and participating in governance processes and structures.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_1.3
All people in Ethiopia benefit from an inclusive, resilient and sustainable economy
The third outcome the Strategic Note 2021-2025, which is fully aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Cooperation Framework 2020-2025, recognizes the critical importance of building an inclusive, resilient, and sustainable economy. In 2022, UN Women contributed towards this outcome through supporting the advocacy for adoption of enabling policy and regulatory frameworks of the economy which are gender responsive and centered on women and their opportunities. UN Women has been instrumental in introducing the forward-looking mechanisms to track and make public allocations to gender equality and women’s empowerment in Ethiopia and as a result used by the Office of The Federal Auditor General Ethiopia (OFAG) through various capacity building. One of them is the gender equality audit manual used, by OFAG, to assess the performance gaps of government bureaus and health institutions to integrate, monitor and respond to gender inequalities in planning, financing, and budgeting in three regions and two city administrations. UN Women provided technical and financial support to OFAG to develop the manual and pilot it in Ethiopia, spearheading this initiative as an example for other African countries to deliver on gender-responsive planning and budgeting. The director of infrastructure performance audit publicly recognized the role of UN Women efforts in fostering accountability around gender equality in Ethiopia. In addition, the Gender Budget Statement (GBS) has been adopted by two sectoral ministries in Ethiopia. The Gender Budget Statement is a forward-looking mechanism to track and make budget allocations to gender equality and women’s empowerment, ultimately influencing the government in Ethiopia to increase financing for gender. The Ministry of Finance with the support from UN Women played a key role in introducing the Gender Budget Statement which has enabled two sectors, Federal Job Creation and the Ministry of Agriculture, to adopt and pilot the mechanism and guide other sectoral ministries with their experiences. Both sectors have planned their three-year programme budget plans and have started reporting using the Gender Budget Statement. Moreover, following UN Women’s technical and financial support, additional six institutions (Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs, Ministry of Planning and Development, Ministry of Technology, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Labour) now have better understanding on the Gender Budget Statement and how to apply it to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment. The six sectors have committed to developing their GBSs in 2023 and started planning and reporting using the tool. The steps in institutionalization of both budget planning and tracking mechanisms within the key ministries in Ethiopia will contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 and its target (5.C.1) on the proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment. The GBS encourages the government of Ethiopia for appropriate budget tracking and monitoring systems to be in place and strengthened commitment for allocations for gender equality by identifying if it has programs/policies and resource allocations for GEWE. In addition, UN Women made progress in advancing women’s economic empowerment by supporting multi-sectoral actors and systems as well as programs to advance women’s and female youth’s access to and use of services and productive resources. UN Women contributed to evidence-based policy advocacy, coordination, and capacity building to stakeholders that enable increased women's and girls' access to multisectoral gender-responsive and integrated development interventions. The national women’s economic empowerment forum (NWEEF), which was established engaging different stakeholders, has been instrumental in improving coordination among actors and serving as a platform that brings together key actors for collective decisions and collaborative actions. Ministry of Women and Social Affair (MoWSA), Ministry of Labour and Skills, Action Aid and Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations (ECCSA) engaged in operationalizing the national platform and cascading to regional states. Following the forum, high-level policy consultation with Cooperative Promotion Commission, MoWSA and regional counterparts contributed to effort made in addressing barriers that affect women's participation in cooperative societies and enterprises. In 2022, UN Women continued to adhere to the theory of change for this outcome strengthening the cross-thematic collaboration in contributing to the economy, economic and livelihood opportunities and social protection institutions to be gender responsive and inclusive.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_1.4
All people in Ethiopia live in a society resilient to environmental risks and adapted to climate change.
The fourth outcome the Strategic Note 2021-2025, which is fully aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Cooperation Framework 2020-2025, responds to the risks and threats that are posed by environmental degradation and climate change which exacerbate humanitarian crisis. In 2022, a total of 5,563 conflict-affected women accessed essential services, goods, and resources and became more resilient to humanitarian shocks, including violence against women and girls (VAWG) in disaster settings. Through the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) global grant which is based on UN Women’s signature Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection (LEAP) framework, UN Women championed women’s active participation and leadership in humanitarian action, through support to networks and civil society organizations. UN Women provided technical, financial, and coordination support to six partners including Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), the Association for Women’s Sanctuary and Development (AWSAD), the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), and the Network for Ethiopian Women’s Association (NEWA), CARE Ethiopia and Marie Stopes International Ethiopia (MSIE), enabling them to support 5,563 conflict-affected women and girls, including survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) and conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in the Northern Ethiopia conflict, with comprehensive rehabilitation and reintegration services, including livelihood support to rebuild destroyed business and free legal aid. UN Women made progress towards promoting gender transformative approaches and practices among actors working on climate action, agriculture, agri-business and disaster risk management –government, private sectors, academic and research institutions. With enhanced capacity, access to tools, such as agriculture training manuals and audio visual training material and evidence generation, key stakeholders from the agricultural sector are now empowered and equipped with capacities to spearhead gender transformative approaches including developing gender responsive policies, legal frameworks, manuals/guidelines, and tools as well as supporting rural women's access to services and resources. The gender transformative approaches implemented by Climate Smart Agriculture and Agribusiness (CSAAB) project, are contributing to the improved attitudes against discriminatory practices against women to enhance their equal participation in income generated opportunities and decision makings as well as benefits from natural resources. Partnering with SOS Sahel Ethiopia and local formal and informal institutions, the Social Analysis and Action (SAA), Para legal groups and the gender model family impacted to transform community attitudes and discriminatory practices against women and girls. Such gender transformative approaches are addressing gender inequality and social issues including decision making and division of labour at household level, household asset management, female genital mutilation and other matters that are undermining gender equality and women's empowerment in their localities. Free legal aid mechanisms now link and support 56 women and women’s organizations with the formal legal institutions on land rights and related issues, as a result of UN Women support. UN Women recognizes the importance of ensuring the gender responsiveness of measures, including policies, regulatory and programmatic ones, targeting environmental degradation and climate change and land right issues in relation to gender equality and women empowerment. In relation to this, the Rural Land Administration and Use Proclamation and the Community Watershed Management and Use Regulation drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) have incorporated key provisions that protect the rights of women to access and benefit from land resources and ensure their representation in community decision making process, as a result of UN Women’s technical and financial support facilitated in collaboration with the Women Affairs and Land administration and Use Directorates of the MoA as well the Women Land Right Taskforce. The drafts documents will be presented to the council of ministers for endorsement in 2023. Furthermore, the Rural Land Administration and Use Directorate (RLAUD) of the Ministry of Agriculture make conscious deliberation on gender issues in land related tasks. Women’s land right issues are being used to promote evidence-based dialogues and policy and program formulation by government and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) in particular. The key role that UN Women played with the RLAUD directorate enabled the team to give more attention to women’s land rights issues and contribute to women's rights protection in land registration, certification, transaction, and rural land legal frameworks. In 2022, UN Women continued to adhere to the theory of change for this outcome ensuring the gender responsiveness of measures, including policy, regulatory and programmatic ones are in place targeting environmental degradation and climate change, exacerbated, and worsened by protracted humanitarian shocks.Showing 1 - 4 of 4
Disclaimer and notes
The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.
References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
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