2024 UN System-wide Action Plan (UN-SWAP) on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
The United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) is honored to have received recognition from UN Women for our performance in the 2024 UN System-wide Action Plan (UN-SWAP) on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In just five years, UNOCT has gone from meeting or exceeding 3 performance indicators to exceeding or meeting 15 out of 17 performance indicators, outperforming the UN Secretariat average.
This milestone reflects our strong institutional commitment to advancing gender equality, the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women, and promoting and protecting human rights in preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism conducive to terrorism (CT/PCVE), in line with international human rights law, the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, and other relevant General Assembly, Security Council, and Economic and Social Council resolutions.
Key achievements in these five years include:
- Establishment of a Human Rights and Gender Section, including a Gender Unit, to provide technical assistance, oversight and quality assurance across the Office’s policy, coordination and programmatic functions
- Adoption and Implementation of a Gender Mainstreaming Policy
- Enhanced integration of gender in programme/project design, including through the review by the Gender Unit of programme/project documents submitted to the Programme Review Board, technical assistance provided by the Gender Unit to UNOCT programmes and projects, updated Standard Operating Procedures on Programme/Project Management.
- Improved compliance of evaluations with UNEG standards
- Establishment of an internal Gender Task Force
- Approval of a Global Gender Programme
- Establishment of the Gender and Identity Factors Platform
- Memorandum of Understanding and Action Plan with UN Women
We are committed to improving financial tracking and resource allocation for gender equality, aligning with the Gender Equality Marker (GEM) and reaching 15% threshold set by the Secretary-General. We will continue striving towards meeting the requirements of the UN SWAP 3.0 enacted this year.
UNOCT will continue to strive towards gender equality, gender parity, the empowerment of women and girls, and accelerating the implementation of our commitments on women, peace and security, ensuring that CT/PCVE efforts are gender-responsive and rooted in human rights.
