In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to address the fact that there was no single recognized driver to direct UN activities on gender equality issues. This had come at a critical period for women’s rights and gender equality in Uganda as there was increased recognition on the need to address challenges around combatting violence against women, addressing high levels of mortality, gaps in...

Women are faced with significant barriers to gender equality especially around finances, employment, education, unpaid care-work and gender-based violence, yet the pandemic further compounded this. The Generation Equality Forum was conceived to address the challenges faced by women and girls globally and accelerate progress towards the realization of the Beijing agenda.  Conceived prior to the pandemic, the 2021 Forum became even more pertaining in light of the unequal burden borne by women...

In Uganda, one of the world’s youngest populations, the government adopted the National Development Plan III and from this the UN adopted the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework to support its implementation.  The last two years saw sharp spikes in the cases of domestic violence reported to police, unprecedented rise in teen-pregnancies and high numbers of women-led businesses closing, exposing already concerning gender gaps in access to finance/collateral and technology in...

With a renewed focus on financing for gender equality and UN Women’s work in Uganda, UN Women pushed their work on social norm change in this period with various partners and initiatives, supporting the initiation of the Uganda chapter for both the African Women's Leadership Network (AWLN) and the Council of Traditional Leaders of Africa (COTLA), in addition to the Men at Work for Gender Equality (Men at Work) among others. The government of Uganda developed their third national action...

With the introduction of a feminist foreign policy by Sweden’s then minister of foreign affairs Mrs.Margot Wallström, the government of Sweden signed up to support the Un women Ugandas country office. With the aim of developing women's political participation, economic recovery, ending violence against women, increasing access to justice and women's participation in peace and security. This paved the way for increased development partnerships in Un women Uganda's work on the ground and paved...

An introduction into what to expect from the insightful conversations to be had in this series by UN Women Uganda.