When different parts of the multilateral system act together, they can deliver greater results—and maximize the use of scarce resources. UN Women is mandated (A/RES/64/289) to lead, coordinate and promote the accountability of the UN system in its work on gender equality and the empowerment of women. The UN General Assembly has called on all parts of the UN system to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women within their mandates, and ensure that commitments on paper lead to progress on the ground.
Coordination for gender equality and women’s empowerment within the UN system bridges normative commitments and operational delivery, leveraging the mandates and expertise of UN system entities for transformational results. It ensures that global standards are reflected in regional and country level accountability and support systems, strategic planning, joint programming, evidence generation and advocacy to deliver meaningful and lasting change in the lives of all women and girls.
UN Women’s coordination mandate is fully integrated in the Europe and Central Asia Regional Office Strategic Note for 2026-2029.
The Secretary-General’s UN System-Wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan (GEAP), launched on 8 March 2024, is a flagship initiative to accelerate progress on gender equality across the UN system. It consists of five bold pillars, each designed to work in concert together to achieve transformative results for gender equality within the United Nations System while ensuring coherence and accountability to better deliver for women and girls.
The Secretary General’s Clarion Call on Gender Equality reaffirms the UN’s commitment to equality and non-discrimination as per the UN charter, urging “all United Nations personnel to stand unwavering and united to uphold a strong policy stance on gender equality everywhere”.
The Secretariat of the GEAP is hosted by the UN Women Coordination Division. In Europe and Central Asia, UN Women supports the UN system in the region implement the GEAP through increased capacity and accountability for gender equality results.
The UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECA) provides expertise and technical support to UN Country Teams (UNCTs) in the region (including countries without a UN Women presence). This includes facilitating knowledge sharing and provision of technical support to prepare Common Country Analysis (CCA) documents and the development and implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks (UNSDCFs) – to ensure that the UN joint planning processes at country level are gender responsive and apply the twin-track gender approach of gender mainstreaming and gender-focused interventions.
Where relevant, UN Women Regional Office supports gender coordination mechanisms in regional and country level humanitarian responses.
The UN Women Regional Office also provides technical support to UN Women offices in implementation of our coordination mandate at country level. UN Women spearheads the UN gender coordination work at country level through chairing or co-chairing UN Country Team (UNCT) Gender Theme Groups (or Gender Results Groups where relevant). This inter-agency mechanism provides programmatic, technical, and policy advice to the Resident Coordinator and UNCT, enhancing collective results for gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women supports the UNCT to build its capacity to mainstream gender in its joint work, including in the Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework that sets out the expected contributions and results of the UNCT in country-level development, to monitor progress and to report on results achieved. UN Women also leads the Gender Theme Group membership to integrate gender equality in the UNCT’s joint engagement and advocacy with government and civil society partners, in public communications and awareness-raising, and in mobilizing resources for technical assistance, in line with the UN System-Wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan and its Clarion Call.
In exercising this role, UN Women is guided by standards and accountability tools adopted by the United Nations at the global level. The United Nations Country Team System-Wide Action Plan Gender Equality Scorecard provides a methodology and standard minimum criteria across 15 indicators to assess the UNCT’s performance in mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment through its joint work. UN Women is the global technical lead for this effort, and provides support to UNCTs at country and regional level to complete the comprehensive assessment and subsequent annual reports to track progress.
At the regional level, UN Women and UN regional commissions assist efforts to uphold agreed gender equality norms, working through regional coordination mechanisms. Through the ECA Regional Collaborative Platform (RCP), the UN Women Regional Office informs Regional Directors on trends in gender data and statistics, key challenges, lessons, achievements and recommendations, both in terms of programmatic and normative work to advance strategic joint efforts on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the region. It also co-leads, together with the regional offices of UNFPA and OHCHR, the ECA Issue-Based Coalition on Gender Equality and Human Rights (IBC-GE-HR). The goal of the IBC-HE-HR is to ensure a coordinated UN system approach to promoting gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights in the region, with a specific focus on supporting UNCTs, Gender Theme Groups and Human Rights Working Groups. The UN Women Regional Office also contributes to greater UN system coherence and alignment with gender normative frameworks through its coordination with UN entities for engagement in intergovernmental processes, through contributing gender expertise in other regional coordination mechanisms – such as the Peer Support Group and other RCP thematic coordination groups – and through joint programmes and initiatives with sister UN agencies at regional and sub-regional levels.