Marybeth Collins
The Gender Equality Seal for Development is the
United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) flagship initiative to bolster capacities and accelerate impacts towards achieving transformative gender equality. In the 2021-2023 round, 76 country offices voluntarily participated in this two-year initiative, with 66 meeting the minimum standards for bronze, silver, or gold certification. By 2023, the Seal had been fully implemented in 116 country offices over ten years, encompassing 90% of UNDP country offices.
Far more than a mere certification, the Seal process takes country office participants on a comprehensive journey that integrates UNDP core values, learning, and a collective sense of purpose with a strict methodology to improve impacts on gender equality. As UNDP’s primary tool to drive the institutional transformation necessary for gender equality, the Seal has a broad impact across all facets of UNDP’s work.
Highlights from the Seal Building Blocks:
- Country Office Leadership: Senior managers from gold-certified offices demonstrate their commitment by stepping out of their comfort zones, altering personal behaviors, and practicing power-sharing and strategic thinking. Notable gold-certified offices in 2023 include Bangladesh, Burundi, Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Nepal, the Pacific Office (Fiji), Paraguay, and Samoa (multi-country office).
- Integration and Specialization: The Seal’s requirement of having a full-time gender specialist has led to significant changes in the UNDP gender architecture. Between 2021 and 2023, 14 new gender specialists were recruited. The Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific recruited four subregional gender specialists and a Gender Equality Seal coordinator. All gold-certified offices have a full-time senior national gender adviser with direct access to decision-makers and influence over national stakeholders.
- Continuous Learning and Innovation: While 93% of Seal offices provide training for all personnel, the most effective learning is built on behavioral and individual changes. The Programme for the Palestinian People exemplifies this by implementing Gender Transformative Workshops, offering participants a safe space for self-reflection on personal, social, and religious perceptions of social norms. However, ensuring the gender capacities of portfolio heads remains challenging, as only 42% of Seal offices provided specialized capacity-building to team leads.
- An Equal and Inclusive Culture: Despite achieving overall gender parity in staffing, more effort is needed to ensure women are in decision-making positions, especially in crisis countries. An anonymous survey revealed a gender gap in perceptions of UNDP as an equal and respectful workplace, with men viewing their workplace as more equal and empowering than women. Work/life balance remains a significant challenge for all country offices, even the high-performing ones.
- Matching Ambition with Financial Resources: In 2023, the share of program expenditures where advancing gender equality and empowering women was a principal or significant objective increased to 69%, up from 66% in 2022. The Burundi office, which has been part of the Seal program since 2017, saw expenditures on gender equality rise from 47% to 84%, with a gold certification in 2023.
- Accountability: In 2023, the Gender Steering and Implementation Committee, chaired by the UNDP Administrator, reviewed implementing the Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025. The UN review of gender architecture highlighted this committee as a good practice. UNDP established an Advisory Circle of civil society and external experts on energy, women, peace and security, and feminist economics to guide strategy implementation.
- Communications for Advocacy: In 2023, UNDP launched significant publications and communications campaigns, such as the twin indices on women’s empowerment and parity with UN Women, supporting International Women’s Day, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, and other key events. During the United Nations General Assembly, UNDP produced the web story “From global emergency to global equality.” Campaigns in China and Bangladesh reached millions, promoting rural girls in science and women’s safety in public spaces, respectively.
Signature Solutions and Data Metrics
UNDP has identified several signature solutions to address complex global challenges. These solutions align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by fostering innovation, inclusive development, and effective governance. Understanding the impact of these solutions involves analyzing key data metrics for each initiative:
- Poverty Eradication:
- Initiatives aimed at eliminating extreme poverty through inclusive economic growth, social protection systems, and access to essential services.
- Data Points: Number of individuals lifted out of extreme poverty, increased household incomes, access to healthcare, education, and clean water.
- Governance:
- Strengthen institutions and promote inclusive political processes to enhance transparency, accountability, and citizen participation.
- Data Points: Number of institutions strengthened, transparency and corruption indices, citizen participation and satisfaction surveys.
- Resilience Building:
- Supporting communities to recover from and adapt to crises, conflict, and climate change impacts through tailored resilience programs.
- Data Points: Number of communities supported, reduced casualties and economic losses, livelihood improvements, and mental health support in post-crisis settings.
- Energy Access and Efficiency:
- Promoting sustainable and clean energy solutions ensures everyone has reliable energy access, which is crucial for development and economic growth.
- Data Points: Percentage of population with reliable energy access, reduction in fossil fuel dependency, greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency improvements, and renewable energy adoption rates.
- Gender Equality:
- Empowering women and girls, promoting equal opportunities, and addressing gender-based violence to achieve gender parity.
- Data Points: The number of women and girls empowered, the decline in gender-based violence incidents, and women’s participation and leadership in political, economic, and social spheres.
- Environment and Climate Change:
- Initiatives focusing on biodiversity conservation, sustainable land management, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.
- Data Points: Conservation of biodiversity and forest cover, success of sustainable land management practices, carbon emission reductions, progress towards climate change mitigation targets.
- Digital Transformation:
- Leveraging digital technologies to enhance development outcomes, improve service delivery, and bridge the digital divide.
- Data Points: Population access to the internet and digital services, digital literacy rates, inclusion in underserved communities, improved service delivery through digital platforms, and reduced digital divide.
Looking Ahead
During the first two years of implementing the Gender Equality Strategy, UNDP found renewed strength and inspiration. The organization embraces the challenge of deepening its efforts and strengthening analytical capacities to transform norms, values, and power structures. Key lessons from evaluations inform the next steps.
One major focus is supporting transformative universal social protection. UNDP has made strides in integrating gender equality into social protection systems, addressing critical issues such as unpaid care and the informal economy. However, more attention and support are needed to support transformative national practices and ensure all women receive adequate social protection.
Another priority is focusing on women’s civil rights. UNDP has amplified support for women to access justice, particularly in cases of sexual and gender-based violence and in crises. The next step is to scale work to civil justice matters, such as women’s rights to land, natural resources, and inheritance.
Transforming norms, values, and power structures remains a central goal. Countries are working to shift gender social norms, and UNDP is committed to designing and implementing interventions to promote these changes. This focus on transforming norms, values, and power structures is essential for accelerating gender equality.
UNDP will continue to follow the Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025, learning from the past two years and advocating for gender equality by pushing beyond comfort zones and generating changes in thinking and behaviors.
