Nearly 65% of adults in the Arab region remain excluded from formal financial systems, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The Annual SDG Review 2025 paints a sobering picture of persistent financial exclusion that is undermining the region’s ability …
Countries in Asia and the Pacific need to extend social protection coverage for all. Doing so would help them build back better after the COVID-19 pandemic. It would also help them tackle a range of compounding challenges arising from population ageing, migration, urbanization, technological advancements, disasters and climate change. Yet, …
This Info Note discusses gender-based barriers to climate-smart agriculture adoption in Northern Uganda and the opportunities for gender-responsive climate-smart agriculture.
There was a modest decline in underweight prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa. Anaemia declined fastest among adult women and the richest pregnant women, although it affects all women with no marked disparities. Overweight is increasing rapidly among adult women and women with no education. Capital city residents had a threefold more …
Transport is traditionally a male-dominated sector. The realization that the sector and its subsystems have been conceived, designed, and matured from either a male-oriented or a gender-neutral perspective is thus unsurprising. In Kenya, discussion about gender and related aspects has been on the rise since the formulation of the Integrated …
This report includes an assessment of the extent to which progress towards the targets of the Sendai Framework has been gender-responsive and disability-inclusive. The guiding research question for the assessment is as follows: how do selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region identify and address diverse needs of disadvantaged groups, characterized …
2020 was supposed to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for women and girls. The year when governments, businesses, organisations, and individuals came together to develop a five-year plan to accelerate progress for #GenerationEquality. Then COVID-19 struck. Now, unless the world acts fast, 2020 risks being a year of irreversible setbacks and …
Transport is traditionally a male-dominated sector. The realization that the sector and its subsystems have been conceived, designed, and matured from either a male-oriented or a gender-neutral perspective is thus unsurprising. In Kenya, discussion about gender and related aspects has been on the rise since the formulation of the Integrated …
An estimated 500,000 more girls risk being forced into child marriage and as many as one million more are expected to become pregnant in 2020 as a result of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new analysis from Save the Children reveals—a year-over-year increase of four and three per …
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE) has, for the first time, conducted a review of the UN system’s support for implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable …
Most of the world’s nations are not doing enough to protect women and girls from the economic and social fallout being caused by the COVID-19 crisis, according to new data released today by UNDP and UN Women from the COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker. The tracker, which includes over 2,500 …
Access to finance has been found crucial in influencing firms’ real activities and economic performance. This paper investigates the relationship between the financing structure and firm performance by explor- ing a unique panel dataset of 59,968 Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) operating in the manufacturing sector in Indonesia over the …
Time Use Survey (TUS) provides a framework for measuring time dispositions by the population on different activities. It is an important source of information about the activities that are performed by the population and the time duration for which such activities are performed. One distinguishing feature of Time Use Survey …
Protect the Progress: Rise, Refocus, Recover, 2020 highlights that since the Every Woman Every Child movement was launched 10 years ago, spearheaded by the United Nations Secretary-General, there has been remarkable progress in improving the health of the world’s women, children and adolescents. For example, under-five deaths reached an all-time …
Women remain underrepresented in most transport-related industries, with only 17% female employees on average across a sample of 46 countries. Both attracting and retaining them remains a challenge for governments and the private sector. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the correlation between female participation in the transport workforce …
Uttar Pradesh is one of India’s poorest states and its farmers have experienced considerable changes in the climate in recent years – from longer summers and harsher winters to much less predictable rains. Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) has been working with local people, mostly farmers on small and marginal …
This report is based on a survey of 1,400 people affected by conflict and displacement in eight countries, and more detailed surveys and needs assessment in a total of 14 countries. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) research found that these communities have suffered widespread loss of income since the pandemic …
Over the past months, as the world has sought desperately to deal both with the medical impacts of the virus and to prepare a response to its many secondary effects, research on COVID-19 has accelerated. However, there is limited research on the social impacts of COVID-19 and on the consequences …
Since the beginning of the lockdowns and quarantine restrictions enacted by Governments to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is witnessing a horrifying surge - a surge of what was already an epidemic - in gender-based violence (GBV), particularly intimate partner violence. A plethora of reports from across the …
This publication summarizes data, research, and policy work by UN Women’s Policy and Programme Division on the pandemic’s impact on women and girls, including the impact on extreme poverty, employment, health, unpaid care, and violence against women and girls. The publication also brings into focus the paucity of gender data …
Understanding the current status of violence prevention and response services is therefore essential to assessing risks to children. The report documents what has happened to such services across the world: 1.8 billion children live in the 104 countries where violence prevention and response services have been disrupted due to COVID-19, …
