Training on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Principles and Approaches in the UNSDCF (2026-2030) Development in China

This training comes at an important time, as we have recently initiated the process of developing our next United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for the period 2026-2030. This framework serves as our core programming instrument and provides a coherent, strategic direction for UN entities’ activities at the country level.

Last year, the UN Secretary-General launched the System-wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan on International Women’s Day. This Acceleration Plan is at the heart of the vision for a UN 2.0 and epitomizes our collective commitment to recalibrate, reskill, and realign our expertise, ensuring that gender responsiveness, equity, and inclusion are central to all our endeavors. 

The vision for a UN 2.0—centered on achieving gender equality and consistently delivering for women and girls—is not just a strategic imperative but a core component of our mandates. It is a collective responsibility shared by every entity within the UN system. This “all-in” approach calls for the entire UN system to work together to advance the rights of women and girls everywhere, at every level, and to ensure that gender responsiveness and inclusion are embedded in every action and decision we take.

As a result, mainstreaming gender in our new UNSDCF is imperative. To effectively integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment throughout the Cooperation Framework, we all must place gender equality at the heart of our programming, in line with the minimum requirements under the UNCT System-wide Action Plan (SWAP) Gender Equality Scorecard.

Over the next two days, we will all have a valuable opportunity to strengthen our skills and understanding of gender equality and women’s empowerment principles and approaches. More importantly, we will take time to review and assess our draft Cooperation Framework and identify opportunities to further mainstream gender as we advance through the subsequent stages of is development, ensuring we turn our collective promise to leave no one behind into tangible actions. 

I hope and expect that the recommendations and guidance discussed during this workshop will be taken onboard by the working groups as they continue to develop the results framework for the new Cooperation Framework, and I look forward to having a new CF for the period 2026-2030 that effectively mainstreams gender equality and women’s empowerment principles throughout all of our areas of work. 

Thank you.