Achievements

Since its establishment in 1976, UNIFEM has been a pioneer in the defence of women's rights and the promotion of their empowerment. The following are 30 key achievements over the past 30 years.

1: Early in its history, UNIFEM recognized the immense potential of women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as partners for development activities, a trend later picked up by larger development organizations such as the World Bank. Between 1979 and 1985, the percentage of UNIFEM NGO partners leaped from 6 per cent to 50 per cent. One early UNIFEM partner was the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, which requested support in 1981 for a reforestation and employment project. Thousands of women planted millions of trees, and the movement jump-started a global call for "development by the people, rather than for the people." A source of inspiration worldwide, founder Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
2: In 1980, UNIFEM established the UN's first community revolving loan fund in Swaziland. The project transformed UN development strategies by re-interpreting the traditional emphasis on experts, equipment and training. With renewable financial resources rather than handouts, women learned livelihood skills and borrowed money to create their own enterprises, often working in cooperatives. By 1984, the project's success, evidenced by high repayment rates and improved living standards, convinced financial institutions to get on board. While previously 96 per cent of women could not get bank credit, the Swaziland Development and Savings Bank now opened its doors wide to women's businesses, quadrupling available funds.
3: UNIFEM pioneered some of the earliest demonstrations of how women's progress benefits families and societies. In 1979, the fund backed the first community development programme for rural women in Oman. It integrated income generation, health and literacy. Hundreds of women learned to profit from traditional skills such as sewing and embroidery, and an emphasis on such culturally acceptable activities gave women an entry point to assume new roles as wage earners and community leaders. The project eventually reached 135 villages and 54 settlements, upping family incomes by 15 per cent. By 1994, the Government had created a national community development programme covering half the country.
4: In unleashing women's dynamism, UNIFEM's targeted interventions have catalysed far-reaching change. In the early 1980s, the fund provided seed grants to Flora Tristan, a women's centre in Peru. One project helped map problems faced by women in industrial jobs. A second initiative trained women for union leadership, and several women quickly emerged as powerful national voices. They lobbied Congress to pass laws protecting women's occupational health and making employers liable for sexual harassment. Flora Tristan later formed a national network of 80 NGOs working with rural women. Current programmes include supporting women of three indigenous groups in the Amazonian region to address gender-based violence through both their traditional judicial system and state legislation.
5: Early UNIFEM support laid the foundations for institutions that galvanized women's movements. During the 1980s, the Women and Development Unit (WAND) of the University of the West Indies in Barbados used UNIFEM assistance for a unique partnership between academics, NGOs and international donors. WAND linked women across the Caribbean to organize communities, provide training and conduct ground-breaking research — including some of the first studies tracking the impact of global economic patterns on women. In the 1990s, the Unit housed the secretariat of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN). Today, DAWN connects women from across the global South around analysis and activism that shapes international debates on development.
6: A 1990 UNIFEM project convinced the World Bank to grant its first-ever loan specifically targeting women. In the Gambia, UNIFEM set up millet mills in 15 villages to ease women's labour, reducing a four-hour task to five minutes. With the saved time, women planted additional crops for cash and food. Another result was soon apparent: Less backbreaking work meant fewer complications affected women giving birth. After people in 50 other villages took notice and purchased their own milling equipment, the Government opted to expand the project. UNIFEM assisted the Gambian Women's Bureau in developing a loan proposal, and soon substantial Bank funding was on the way.
7: Globally, UNIFEM has been at the vanguard of efforts to ensure that public policies reflect the realities of women's lives, including through the collection of accurate data. An early success story took place in India, where UNIFEM supported the process of the 1991 Census with gender-sensitive definitions of work, which resulted in a 2.6 per cent increase in the recording of the Female Workforce Participation Rate (FWPR). To incorporate gender into the 2001 exercise more systematically, UNIFEM worked in partnership with the Government, NGOs and UN agencies. The FWPR increased by 3.4 percentage points — approximately 37 million women.
8: In 1991, at the start of a decade of devastating conflicts, UNIFEM was among the first international agencies to understand that "gender-neutral" humanitarian assistance often means that women are short changed on resources and vulnerable to abuse. A project in Liberia became an early model for improving displaced women's food security, shelter and income generation. By 1994, UNIFEM had created the African Women in Crisis (AFWIC) programme to link responses to women's immediate humanitarian needs with the provision of skills and resources required once they return home. AFWIC has piloted strategies used across Africa, from legal reforms protecting women refugees to the paired provision of trauma counselling with job skills training.
9: Women's rights groups from around the world, led by the US-based Center for Women's Global Leadership, engaged in concerted lobbying during the international political negotiations leading up to the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights. UNIFEM became the primary UN champion of these efforts. The results dramatically changed the international consensus on human rights. Governments for the first time recognized that women's rights are human rights, on a par with more traditional rights defined by international law. The conference also marked the first international acknowledgment of violence against women as an abuse of women's human rights.
10: In Cambodia, UNIFEM initiated one of the first post-conflict election projects to help women stake a claim in new political processes. Before the 1993 election, a Women's Summit trained women on political advocacy and presented political parties with recommendations to achieve women's equality. Participants soon created some of Cambodia's first women's organizations, while the election resulted in a woman being appointed as the Vice-Minister of Justice. Women's activism shaped the new Constitution, which calls for abolishing all forms of discrimination against women and guarantees women's rights on issues from maternity leave to equal pay. By 2002, a UNIFEM-sponsored voter education campaign contributed to the successful election of nearly 1,000 women into office.
11: Recognizing poor women's minimal credit resources, UNIFEM became one of the first international organizations to help scale up the flourishing micro-credit systems created by national NGOs. By the early 1990s, UNIFEM began connecting these groups with donors and private companies to assist thousands of women in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In Bolivia and Colombia, for example, 30,000 loans totalling US$16 million had been granted by 1995. UNIFEM also supported the formation of the International Coalition on Women and Credit, a critical advocate behind the Beijing Platform for Action's call to increase women's access to credit.
12: From home-based to migrant workers, UNIFEM has pushed forward the protection of women's employment rights by linking women to each other so they can bargain for a better deal overall. In southern Africa, women play significant but overlooked roles in the mining sector. Some crush stones in roadside cottage industries; others work deep in the mines. In 1993, UNIFEM carried out a study defining the full scope of their participation, then helped women in five countries form national associations for collective bargaining. The Women in Mining Trust, a regional lobbying force, emerged and in 1999 convinced the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Ministers of Mining Committee to make gender part of all regional policies.
13: Across Latin America, UNIFEM has rallied support to stop the pervasive problem of domestic violence. Early actions broke taboos that had shrouded the issue in silence and became examples picked up by anti-violence campaigns worldwide. In 1994, UNIFEM helped conduct the first regional meeting of high-level police officials on domestic violence; several countries subsequently passed their first laws against domestic violence. UNIFEM assistance in Brazil during the mid-1990s produced the first research on how police stations deal with violence against women and supplied training for police staff in special women's police stations. By 2000, Mexico was developing statistical systems to capture the impact of violence — and to shape policies to respond.
14: UNIFEM has sought innovative ways to help poorer women reap the benefits of globalization. In 1996, a pilot project in Burkina Faso connected small-scale women producers of shea butter, traditionally used in cosmetics and skin care, to flourishing international markets. The project introduced technology and collective production methods for more efficient processing and assisted with access to credit. Two central markets provided ready access to buyers, while regular information on the price, quality and supply requirements of the export market strengthened sales negotiations. Following a trade fair that drew international buyers, women producers signed a major contract with the French cosmetics company L'Occitane. Prices rose 50 per cent.
15: Gender budgets analyse how women and men fare differently under revenues and expenditures in order to redress inequities. Since 1998, UNIFEM has supported the use of this ground-breaking method in 30 countries. Municipalities in Ecuador have used gender budgets to channel more resources into programmes to curb domestic violence. Kenya has eased tax policies to aid women's access to essential commodities. Mexico earmarked 0.85 per cent of the total national budget in 2003 for programmes to promote gender equality, while ministries in India have started in 2005 to provide detailed specifications on allocations benefiting women.
16: In 1996, the General Assembly tapped UNIFEM's growing expertise on stopping violence against women by requesting it to manage the newly created Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women. The Trust Fund offers grants to innovative projects, to date disbursing more than US$10 million to 199 initiatives in 83 countries. In India, a training for judges introduced them to survivors and presented research on low conviction rates. In Kenya, the Trust Fund helped create new rites of passage as an alternative to female genital mutilation. Grantees in the occupied Palestinian territories have worked to prevent so-called honour killings.
17: Raising the visibility of women's rights in regional institutions improves protection records regionally and nationally. UNIFEM has supported gender initiatives at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) since its inception. In 1997, SADC Heads of State signed the Declaration on Gender and Development, a mandate for adopting policies for women's advancement, and established the SADC Gender Unit. The SADC Regional Women's Parliamentary Caucus, created in 2002, has partnered with UNIFEM on advocating for a 30 per cent quota for women in politics — today, eight out of 14 SADC members have a quota system. The African Union has also come on board. In 2003, it adopted a women's rights protocol and a 50 per cent quota for women as commissioners.
18: UNIFEM's commitment to women's human rights includes ensuring that attention goes first to the most marginalized groups — such as indigenous communities. In 1997 in Ecuador, UNIFEM helped establish the Leadership School for Indigenous Women. Initially it held courses for small groups of women on gender equality and human rights, but women soon began replicating the workshops in their communities. One woman became the first indigenous woman on her city council. Since then, the school has become part of an inter-provincial federation for indigenous people. The Government, listening to a growing chorus of indigenous voices, has set up a special national council for indigenous people. All programmes include a gender perspective.
19: As global trade began to boom, UNIFEM urged attention to its diverse impacts on women. After convening a meeting of government officials, women's activists and trade union officials from the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) countries in 1998, a high-level group on gender equality formed under the Mercosur trade agreement. Issues on the agenda now include women's labour patterns and migration. In 1995, UNIFEM held the first regional meeting in South Asia linking gender, trade and poverty. An enthusiastic public response convinced the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to create the Trade-Related Entrepreneurship Development Programme for Women. It has assisted at least 45,000 women by linking them to marketing associations and to information about domestic and foreign markets.
20: As the lead UN agency on women's rights, UNIFEM can create high-profile partnerships and draw worldwide attention. In 1999, a global video conference, held as part of the "A World Free of Violence against Women Campaign," linked the UN General Assembly, the European Parliament and sites in New Delhi, Mexico City and Nairobi, as well as observers in countries from Fiji to Turkey. Under the eye of the international media, personal testimonials provided a dramatic backdrop for the sharing of strategies to stop violence. In parallel, a series of regional campaigns led to an outpouring of public debate.
21: UNIFEM turns to the milestone commitments of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) as a powerful advocacy tool. In 1999, at a time when only a handful of Arab States had signed the Convention, the fund convened one of the first public discussions on CEDAW and Islamic Sharia. A network of CEDAW experts from six Arab States was formed and national initiatives began. After Syria ratified CEDAW in 2003, UNIFEM partnered with the Syrian Women's Union to work on national applications of the Convention with ministry officials.
22: High-stakes peace negotiations have traditionally been closed to women. UNIFEM has helped women convince the world that peace depends on their participation. In 2000, UNIFEM facilitated the participation of Burundian women in the Arusha peace talks — among the first negotiations to welcome women. Most of the women delegates' recommendations appeared in the final accords and later in the new Constitution of Burundi. That same year, UNIFEM was invited to act as a Technical Advisor to the President of the UN Security Council during the Council's first debate on women, peace and security. The result was the watershed Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for bringing more women to peace tables and into all parts of peacekeeping and reconstruction.
23: Transition has brought many changes to the CIS countries, but domestic violence is still frequently ignored by public opinion and overlooked by the law. UNIFEM has drawn on its global experiences to support landmark legislation and advocacy in the region. In 2001, UNIFEM backed an NGO initiative in Ukraine that successfully lobbied for the CIS' first law against domestic violence. In 2002, a UNIFEM study on nine CIS countries provided the region's first comparative data on the phenomenon, and an advocacy campaign reached millions of people. In Kyrgyzstan, NGOs and the National Commission on Women's Affairs collected 34,000 signatures requesting a new law, passed by Parliament in 2003.
24: Globally and nationally, UNIFEM has spearheaded efforts to increase women's political participation, a fundamental prerequisite for gender equality and genuine democracy. In Morocco, UNIFEM assistance played a role in successful advocacy for the first political quota in the Arab world. The number of women parliamentarians soared from two to 35 in the 2002 elections. Training programmes for aspiring women politicians helped double the number of women candidates in five Pacific countries. Sustained UNIFEM support in Burundi helped women assume 30 per cent of decision-making positions in the legislature, while several years of training and advocacy helped Rwanda top the world in its percentage of women parliamentarians: 49 per cent in the lower house.
25: Enacting laws to protect women's rights must be tied to making sure that judicial systems uphold them. UNIFEM has pioneered strategies to ensure that comprehensive forms of gender justice take root, especially in the nascent legal systems of post-conflict countries. UNIFEM assistance helped women in Peru convince the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission to define rape as a weapon of war and to grant reparations to victims of sexual violence. Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission now includes witness protection and trauma counselling for women. UNIFEM is working with the country's Law Reform Commission on drafting new laws against gender-based violence.
26: Since 2002, UNIFEM's responses to Afghanistan's fast-changing circumstances have been instrumental in helping Afghan women grasp opportunities amid the radical changes reshaping their lives. Legal advice, training and support to advocacy were critical for women delegates to the Loya Jirga, which enshrined women's equality in the new Constitution. UNIFEM support to the Ministry of Women's Affairs has led to the development of a National Action Plan on Women. Assistance to the permanent justice institutions is helping to reflect women's perspective in legal reform processes. A national database, set up with UNIFEM support, tracks violence against women in Afghanistan.
27: As poverty rose sharply in post-transition CIS states, UNIFEM crafted some of the earliest programmes to reach women. Among the most vulnerable to economic decline are rural women without land. In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, UNIFEM has initiated strategies guaranteeing that land reforms protect women's rights and that women know their entitlements. Legal clinics in Kyrgyzstan have briefed local authorities, provided advice to thousands of people and fed information into proposed amendments of the Land Code, including protection of women's rights during divorce. Recent changes to Tajikistan's Land Code require listing all family members on land use certificates. The number of farms headed by women reached 14 per cent by 2005.
28: A digital divide threatens women's potential benefits from information technology, in particular in Africa, a region with only a fraction of the world's Internet users. Taking advantage of its unique position to draw together global partners around women's issues, UNIFEM launched the Digital Diaspora Initiative in 2003. The initiative links African high-tech entrepreneurs living in the diaspora, women's NGOs, governments and other UN agencies in order to harness technical know-how and business expertise. In Rwanda, diaspora experts have provided courses on web design, e-commerce and database management to women's NGOs, and an international mentorship committee offers advice to fledgling women's businesses.
29: Even as HIV/AIDS exacts a heavy toll from women, public health messages often do not target or reach them. UNIFEM has found innovative ways to make information more available. A partnership with Indian Railways, the world's third largest employer, has produced a massive campaign for railway employees. It uses an extensive infrastructure of schools, hospitals, training institutes and women's associations — ready-made channels for outreach. Trained peer counsellors now circulate within railway communities with gender-sensitive messages on prevention, care and treatment. Antiretroviral drugs are provided for free, a telephone helpline answers questions, and a revolving fund offers loans to women affected by HIV/AIDS.
30: UNIFEM is actively engaged in advocacy to ensure that gender equality and women's empowerment are at the centre of all efforts to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In 2004, the fund embarked on a five-country pilot project — in Cambodia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco and Peru — to spotlight successful MDG strategies. UNIFEM has worked with local and national officials and women's groups on creating MDG action plans, reflecting gender in costing priorities and developing data to monitor women's progress. In Morocco, the Government has begun linking MDG costing with its existing gender budget initiative. Research in Cambodia on trade reform produced indicators on women's employment slated for inclusion in the national development plan.