UNFPA unveils commitments at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris
In recalling its commitment at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 to the full, effective and accelerated implementation of the landmark Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and UNFPA’s commitment to the follow-up and monitoring of the Nairobi commitments overall, UNFPA unveiled a total of 12 collective* commitments at the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) in Paris, where it led the Action Coalition on Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The other five Action Coalitions are: Gender-based Violence, Economic Justice and Rights, Feminist Action for Climate Justice, Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality and Feminist Movement and Leadership.
In agreeing to these five-year commitments, UNFPA commits to participating in a process within the Action Coalition for joint learning about feminist approaches to the collective work, including addressing intersectional discrimination and implementing systemic change; sharing lessons; co-creating strategies with other stakeholders for implementation of commitments; and ensuring accountability.
Action Coalition on Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
1. Increase access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) within in and out of school settings
Type of commitment:
Programmatic
Advocacy
UNFPA will actively support, promote and engage with the multi-stakeholder platform “the Global Partnership Forum on CSE”. The objective is twofold; to increase delivery of comprehensive and age-responsive information and education and to increase the availability, accessibility and acceptability of adolescent-friendly comprehensive, quality and timely services for in and out of school adolescents and youth, especially girls and marginalized youth, through innovative solutions supported by frontier technology (e.g. robotics), to enable and empower their free and informed decisions and choices about their sexuality and reproductive lives; to protect themselves from unintended pregnancies; from all forms of gender-based violence and harmful practices, and from sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Global
Malawi
Colombia
Ghana
Iran
Ethiopia
Tunisia
Laos
Philippines
North Macedonia
Albania
Kyrgyzstan
Morocco
Zambia
2. Increase the quality of and access to voluntary contraceptive services for all women and girls
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Advocacy
Financial
UNFPA will increase the quality of, and access to, voluntary contraception services for 25 million additional adolescent girls and women through the UNFPA Supplies Partnership as a global health initiative that strengthens health systems, policies and programmes to deliver family planning information and services with choices of quality assured contraceptives focusing on the most underserved and marginalized populations and applying innovative solutions for better efficiency
The UNFPA Supplies Partnership will expand equitable access, including for those most left behind, to high-quality family planning products and services including through supporting countries to strengthen and harmonize their supply chains for contraceptives; expanding method mix and choice of contraceptives, including introducing new contraceptive methods at scale; expand rights- and skills-based family planning training to strengthen service provider capacity and quality of care; and strengthening monitoring, evaluation and accountability. Access for all populations of reproductive age will be addressed, with particular attention to the most marginalized and underserved, including youth and adolescents, persons with disabilities and those in humanitarian contexts.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Afghanistan
Angola
Benin
Bolivia
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Congo
Côte d’Ivoire
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Djibouti
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Haiti
Honduras
Kenya
Kyrgyz Republic
Lao People’s Democratic Republic
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nepal
Niger
Nigeria
Pacific Island Countries
Papua New Guinea
Rwanda
Sao Tome and Principe
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Sudan
Sudan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Timor-Leste
Togo
Uganda
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe
3. Empower women and girls in all of their diversity to make autonomous decisions about their bodies, sexuality and reproduction
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Advocacy
Financial
UNFPA will work to promote gender norms change and increase the knowledge of rights, empower girls, adolescents and women in all of their diversity to make autonomous decisions about their bodies, sexuality and reproduction by 2026. UNFPA will also work through advocacy and technical assistance to support countries in having an enabling environment with supportive laws and regulations needed to guarantee full and equal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). UNFPA will work to invest in and scale up gender/social norms change approaches that transform unequal power relationships, including through evidence-based group education, rights literacy and community engagement. The aim is to fight patriarchy, address toxic masculinity and gender-based violence including harmful practices such as child, early and forced marriages and unions, gender-biased sex selection, female genital mutilation and child sexual abuse. This will also include challenging stigma and discrimination around gender norms and SRHR, including menstrual health, that restrict bodily autonomy and affect access to services for girls, adolescents, women as well as LGBTQIA+ persons. UNFPA will work to ensure that all people, including those with disabilities, are neither forced nor prevented from accessing the full range of sexual and reproductive health services and have the support they need to make decisions and are respected in their decision-making. This commitment will have a strong focus on reaching most marginalized populations.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Global
4. Increase accountability to, participation of and support for autonomous feminist and women’s organizations advocating for implementing the ICPD Programme of Action, especially for those most left behind
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Advocacy
Financial
UNFPA will work to increase the participation of autonomous girls’, women’s, and feminist-led organizations (including girl- and youth-led organizations and collectives, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and persons with disabilities organizations), women human rights defenders and peacebuilders in decision-making about expenditures, policies and programmes related to bodily autonomy and SRHR, and ensure that they are engaged in accountability processes. UNFPA will increase and coordinate with partners to advocate for increasing financial support for these organizations and their allies who are working to promote and protect bodily autonomy and SRHR, especially for those most left behind. UNFPA will work towards ensuring that all of its contributions to the GEF and Action Coalitions are in partnership with the women’s movement.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Global
5. Ending child marriage by scaling up prevention and response efforts
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Advocacy
Financial
UNFPA commits to working with partners to address child marriage to ensure adolescent girls who are marginalized and at risk of and affected by child marriage are effectively making their own informed decisions and choices regarding education, relationships, sexuality, marriage, and childbearing by:
- providing intensive support to marginalized adolescent girls
- ensuring a supportive family and community environment
- increasing capacity of education, health, gender-based violence and child protection systems
- addressing poverty drivers
- supporting governments to enact, enforce and uphold laws and policies in line with international human rights standards
- generating rigorous and relevant data and evidence
Country (countries) of implementation:
Bangladesh
India
Nepal
Yemen
Burkina Faso
Ghana
Niger
Sierra Leone
Ethiopia
Mozambique
Uganda
Zambia
6. Ending female genital mutilation by scaling up what works
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Advocacy
Financial
UNFPA commits to engage stakeholders such as young people, governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, traditional and religious leaders, academia and international development partners in a collective social movement to accelerate efforts to end the practice. UNFPA commits to reach 25 million women and girls, including those most left behind, through its joint programme with UNICEF that will empower community through consensus-building and collective public abandonment of the practice of female genital mutilation; scale up gender and social norms evidenced-based prevention programmes; support regional institutions to promote accountability; and engage men and boys as champions of gender equality and advocates for ending female genital mutilation by promoting gender equitable norms in their families and communities.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Burkina Faso
Djibouti
Egypt
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Indonesia
Kenya
Mali
Mauritania
Nigeria
Senegal
Somalia
Sudan
Uganda
Yemen
Diaspora communities in Europe
Action Coalition on Gender-based Violence
7. Strengthen availability of and capacity to use data for ending gender-based violence (GBV)
Type of commitment:
Programmatic
Financial
UNFPA will work to increase availability and accessibility of quality violence against women and girls (VAWG) prevalence and administrative data and analysis at national and sub-national level in at least 30 countries in line with confidentiality and safety standards and increase capacity across institutions and individuals to safely and ethically collect, report and use VAWG prevalence and administrative data across several regions including at least 30 countries to inform evidence-based policies, laws, response and prevention programming and advocacy across humanitarian, development and peace building contexts, including those affected by climate change affected contexts.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Afghanistan
Belize
Brazil
Burkina Faso
Central African Republic
Côte d’Ivoire
Cabo Verde
Colombia
DR Congo
Fiji
Guyana
Honduras
Iraq
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Liberia
Malawi
Mali
Mexico
Mozambique
Nepal
Niger
Nigeria
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Samoa
Sierra Leone
Sudan
Tajikistan
Trinidad and Tobago
Uganda
Vanuatu
Zimbabwe
8. Improve effective GBV coordination and response at the country level for timely, concrete actions to mitigate risks, and prevent and respond to GBV in emergencies
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Advocacy
Financial
UNFPA commits to meet the needs of GBV survivors and women and girls at risk by deploying personnel with GBV and gender equality expertise to provide survivor-centred, compassionate care and services in emergency settings.
GBV coordination, prevention and response are key foundational elements for UNFPA across all phases of crises. UNFPA is mandated by the Inter-agency Standing Committee (IASC) to lead the GBV Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR) of the Global Protection Cluster, including leadership at the field level. This commitment focuses on areas where UNFPA will continue to demonstrate its leadership in programming on gender-based violence programming and inter-agency coordination in humanitarian emergencies to the access and quality of integrated services for survivors and women and girls at risk. This commitment is also a commitment under the Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Global, emergency response countries
9. Strengthen multi-stakeholder services to support victims and survivors of gender-based violence
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
UNFPA commits to implementation and/or scale-up of the availability of accessible, quality and coordinated multisectoral and survivor-centred response services, with functional referral mechanisms, including for marginalized women and girls in all their diversity, in at least 25 of the highest high VAWG prevalence countries. This will include financial, and technical (including capacity-strengthening) support, coordination and convening guidance and support, in partnership with women-led organizations, guided by the Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence and the Inter-Agency Minimum Standards for GBV in Emergencies Programming and associated tools, in line with and building upon national priorities, commitments and systems to end VAWG.
Country (countries) of implementation: Global
10. Strengthen prevention of gender-based violence
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Financial
UNFPA commits to support the scale-up/implementation of evidence-based and -informed multisectoral and coordinated violence against women and girl prevention strategies guided by the RESPECT framework in at least 25 of the countries with high prevalence of violence against women and girls. This support will include financial, technical (including capacity strengthening), coordination, convening, advocacy and policy engagements. It will include a focus on adolescent girls and young women and marginalized women and girls. It will build on existing efforts in line with national priorities and commitments and in support of and full partnership with women led and women’s rights organizations.
Country (countries) of implementation: Global
Action Coalition on Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality
11. Innovative solutions to strengthen SRHR and end gender-based violence
Type of commitment:
Programmatic
Advocacy
UNFPA commits to apply frontier technologies and people-centered innovative solutions to provide affordable and sustainable access to and availability of essential reproductive health commodities, services and information, with a focus on marginalized populations and hard-to-reach areas and humanitarian settings; to scale up prevention and response to gender-based violence and harmful practices; and to support the availability of disaggregated high-quality data and gender-relevant data sets to inform the creation of evidence-based solutions and better respond to women and girls’ needs especially those furthest behind throughout the world.
Country (countries) of implementation:
Global
Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership
12. Commit to actively promote, protect and strengthen online and offline channels for meaningful participation of feminist movements and women human rights defenders of all ages and in all their diversity
Type of commitment:
Policy
Programmatic
Advocacy
Financial
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UNFPA and other United Nations leaders across all the Action Coalitions, commit to actively promote an open, safe and inclusive civic space and to promote, protect and ensure online and offline channels for meaningful participation of feminist movements and women human rights defenders of all ages and in all their diversity at global, regional, national and sub-national levels, with a view to ensuring different voices are heard and responded to. Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are: all women and girls working on any human rights issue and anyone of any gender who promotes women’s rights and rights related to gender equality.
Country (countries) of implementation: Global
*Only commitment 8 is not a collective commitment
