Gender justice

Progress towards equal power and equal rights for women remains elusive around the world. Globally, discriminatory laws, policies and attitudes remain common and ingrained. In crisis settings, women often bear the brunt of violence, marginalisation, and economic exclusion. Still, women continue to be under-represented in decision-making roles that directly impact their lives, safety, and well-being.

Without gender equality, it is not possible to achieve the ambition of the 2030 Agenda to “leave no one behind”. It´s essential to build effective and inclusive rule of law systems and institutions, to advance gender equality and the ability of women and girls to realise and claim their human rights on equal footing to all others.

UNDP applies a holistic approach to gender justice as a tool for realizing women and girls’ rights and achieving gender equality, in line with the new UNDP Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025.

The Justice Futures CoLab continuously supports UNDP Country Offices to achieve gender-responsive justice and equality, including through technical, financial and policy support on legal protection, gender-sensitive justice and security sector reforms, development of legal aid services, women’s meaningful participation in transitional justice processes and constitutional reforms.

Gender Justice Platform

Through the establishment of the Gender Justice Platform, UNDP and UN Women have joined forces to contribute to closing the global gender justice gap. Together we promote women’s full enjoyment of their rights and their meaningful participation, including in leadership, decision-making and peacebuilding roles, as essential components of building social and political trust and enabling safe and resilient societies.

This innovative and unique platform combines UN Women’s gender equality expertise and UNDP’s strategic global rule of law programming experience, together with more than 20 partners to provide high-impact, sustainable programming that emphasizes women’s leadership and intersectional approaches, with international policy, advocacy, innovation and learning.

Since 2020, the Gender Justice Platform has enabled access to justice for 42,000 individuals across 14 countries and territories across Africa and the Middle East.

The Gender Justice Platform continues to work to bring together new and diverse stakeholders and gender equality champions, including States, civil society, academia, and UN agencies, that are committed to realising rule of law systems that work for all women and girls.

Gender justice platform