WD2023 After-Action Review

Achieving progress for girls and women is dependent upon accurate, disaggregated data to fuel data-driven advocacy, guide interventions, and hold governments accountable. This policy brief explores the critical contributions of data and accountability to gender equality, as well as data and accountability mechanisms and initiatives that have been established to drive progress for girls and women at the regional, national, and global levels.

The first step toward tackling the challenges of climate change is to create a backdrop against which girls and women are empowered to safeguard the environment. Climate change and environmental degradation represent a great threat to poverty reduction, gender equality and to achieving the SDGs. This policy brief examines some useful strategies to promote the inclusion of women in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and negotiations — and ensure their voices are heard.

When girls and women endure restricted access to resources such as land, energy, and water and sanitation, there are far-reaching implications. These can affect their health, education, housing, and livelihoods, as well as the safety and sustainability of the environments in which they live. This brief explores seven solutions highlighting gender-responsive approaches that create an enabling environment for effective and secure access to resources.

The full and equal political participation of women is a prerequisite for democratic governance. This policy brief examines various proven solutions to addressing barriers in institutions, sociocultural norms, and individual capacity in order to empower all girls and women and amplify their voices in decision-making processes.

Women’s economic empowerment is a pre-requisite for inclusive and equitable economic growth. Every day, women demonstrate they can build informal and formal businesses out of very little capital, create networks to maximize limited resources, and shoulder disproportionate care-taking responsibilities. Women succeed in spite of laws, policies, social norms, and institutions that hold them back. This policy brief examines opportunities to create an enabling environment for women to thrive economically.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a phenomenon that transcends social, economic, and geographic borders. GBV is rooted in power imbalances between the sexes and fueled by multiple factors, including cultural norms, social acceptance of harmful practices, and insufficient legal protections. This policy brief discusses several approaches that can help societies step up the prevention of gender-based violence and build a stronger response to violence when it occurs.

A world without fear, stigma, or discrimination is a prerequisite for gender equality, as is girls’ and women’s ability to live according to their sexual health and rights. In order to realize these rights, governments and civil society partners need to adopt comprehensive approaches to protect and uphold them while empowering individuals to claim their rights, including: strong legal and policy frameworks; access to information and comprehensive sexuality education; protecting the rights of marginalized groups; ensuring accountability; and involving men and boys in national efforts to respect, protect, and fulfill sexual rights.

Healthy girls and women are the cornerstone of healthy societies. This brief discusses some of the approaches that can help communities improve the access that girls and women have to a comprehensive range of services for their enjoyment of physical and mental health and rights. Importantly, girls and women should be involved in the design, implementation, evaluation, and accountability of policies, programs, and services.

Providing quality healthcare and nutritional support for all women and babies is vital for a healthy generation. The interventions discussed in this policy brief not only address the leading causes of maternal and newborn death and disabilities, but they also explore solutions and overall health and wellbeing, encompassing good nutrition and the prevention and treatment of maternal injuries.

An infographic on the importance of scaling up gender-sensitive humanitarian action.