Concept note for the side event on Reigniting the Beijing+30 Agenda: Strengthening Financial Accountability and Partnerships through Inter-Agency Pooled Funds and the Gender Equality Marker

Event handout for the side event on Reigniting the Beijing+30 Agenda: Strengthening Financial Accountability and Partnerships through Inter-Agency Pooled Funds and the Gender Equality Marker

This policy paper is focused on diverse groups of socially marginalized women with diverse disabilities. It highlights how the 12 critical areas of concern from the Beijing Platform for Action have progressed or faced continuing entrenched barriers and dealt with new challenges in the 30 years since the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing.

The focus is specifically on how gender inequality and disability exclusion both compound and create unique concerns for women and girls with disabilities. As they are not homogenous, this paper takes an intersectional approach, identifying the impacts for women and girls with disabilities facing numerous forms of discrimination while having different and multiple types of disabilities. Stereotypes and social and cultural norms are discussed in relation to stigma and discrimination.

The paper also features the voices of diverse women leaders with diverse disabilities, with case studies from various low- and middle-income countries.

The paper was produced as part of the development of the global report on accelerating disability inclusion in a diverse and changing world as well as a set of accompanying documents prepared for the Global Disability Summit 2025. Funding was provided by the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany through UNICEF.

The United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on Gender and Disability Inclusion (UNWGGDI) collected case studies for the Beijing+30 review process, looking at lessons learned and good practices on gender, disability inclusion, and intersectionality. UN Women received a total 32 case studies from six UN entities (UN Women, UNEP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, and UNOPS) and two UN Country Teams represented by the UN Resident Coordinator’s Offices in India and Honduras.

In reflection of the 12 critical areas of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, violence against women and women in power and decision-making were equally the most addressed critical areas in the case studies, while the critical areas around women and the environment as well as the girl child were equally the least addressed.

This knowledge compendium aims to share reflections for UN entities, Member States, policymakers, and civil society organizations. It synthesizes best practices, innovative approaches, and collaborative efforts to enhance sustainable development and human rights for all. By ensuring that the rights and needs of women and girls with disabilities are adequately addressed, this document reinforces the commitment of the UN system and its stakeholders to a more equitable and inclusive future.

The list highlights key recent knowledge products developed by the UN System Coordination Division of UN Women to support the integration of gender considerations into strategic system-wide processes at global, regional, and country levels. It covers topics spanning from gender mainstreaming, UN-SWAP, UNCT-SWAP, Gender Equality Marker, UN Gender Theme Groups, to Disability Inclusion and Intersectionality.

This table is to facilitate UN-SWAP focal points to collect data from business owners for the 2023 UN-SWAP reporting, in word format.

This guidance support UNCTs in the application of the GEM within UN INFO and the UNSDCF. The UNCT GEM tracks the resources allocated collectively by the UN system under the UNSDCF cycle, making clear the level of commitment and the degree of resources allocated by the UNCT in support of national GEWE priorities.

In 2022 the UNDP Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTF Office) conducted the Fiduciary Management and Oversight Group (FMOG) Survey on the Funding Compact Commitment 14 targeting inter-agency pooled funds. This commitment is composed of 12 features (well-articulated strategy, clear theories of change, etc.) that are an integral part of each inter-agency pooled fund and that seek the use of pooled funds in an efficient and effective manner in order to galvanize collective action towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The survey includes gender-related questions covering issues such as the use of the gender equality marker (GEM), the establishment of the minimum 15 per cent allocation to programmes with gender equality as their main objective or other financial targets. This publication highlights the main findings of the FMOG survey concerning gender-related issues in Multi-Partner Trust Funds (MPTFs) and Joint Programmes (JPs).

UN-SWAP 2.0 Technical guidance that guides reporting and is updated with references and good practices annually.

UN Women is fully committed to mainstreaming disability inclusion and intersectionality throughout its work, as laid out in the UN Women Strategic Plan 2022–2025. The goal is to ensure a more systematic approach to ensuring the rights of women and girls with disabilities across UN Women’s areas of work.

Disability, gender, and discrimination are closely interlinked, with one in five women experiencing a disability-related exclusion. To address this, UN Women developed a corporate strategy for the empowerment of women and girls with disabilities built on a multi-pronged approach that includes providing normative guidance, integrated policy advice, operational support, and technical assistance for programme and capacity-development. The approach helps ensure that initiatives are both gender-responsive and inclusive of the rights of persons with disabilities.

This brief overviews UN Women’s approach to disability inclusion and intersectionality.

The latest UN system-wide achievements on gender equality and empowerment of women, collected via the 2022 UN-SWAP reporting. A total of 41 useful data points on the number and name of entities per detailed achievements, across 17 business functional indicator areas. 

This is a presentation on the GEM and financial targets in the UN System as part of the ITC-ILO Course  “Gender Responsive Budgeting within Organizations”, made by UN Women in December 2022. The aim of the presentation was to inform participants about the use of the GEM and financial targets as UN tools for ensuring gender equality and the empowerment of women at entity and country levels and at pooled funds. 

UN-SWAP 2.0 Technical guidance that guides reporting and is updated with references and good practices annually.

Empowered by the UN-SWAP 2.0, UN Women is able to identify and coordinate the system-wide adoption of good practices and harmonized products that can be scaled from one entity to another. UN Women selects and publishes a series of good practices from various entities on annual basis, normally through the UN-SWAP review reports and the updated technical guidance. This catalog aggregates various best practices under UN-SWAP 2.0 indicators, updated in 2022.

This brief presents data on the legal barriers that women with disabilities face when accessing economic opportunities in 190 economies. The new data suggest that only one-quarter of economies worldwide explicitly protect and promote the rights of women with disabilities.
 

This brief seeks to explain the status of the implementation of the Gender Equality Marker (GEM) in the UN system (at the entity level, UN Country Team level, and in the inter-agency pooled funds level).

The Gender Equality Marker (GEM) is used by UNICEF to calculate the gender expenditure as part of the accountability to the Executive Board under Strategic Plan and Gender Action Plan. The target of 15% expenditure on gender is established in compliance the UN Systems Wide Action Plan on gender (UN-SWAP). The GEM at the output level and the Specific Intervention Code (SIC) at the activity level are the two main parameters used in calculating gender expenditure in UNICEF.

The ILO Guidance on the use of the gender marker explains the requirements for each GEM score and provide examples to ensure the correct application of the gender maker.

The brief highlights UN Women’s research on disability inclusion markers alongside insights from a wide range of development partners.

An short brief and illustration on applying Gender Equality Marker in UNFPA