Gender Action Plan, 2022-2025
A vision for lasting, transformative change
Gender equality means that girls and boys enjoy the same rights, resources, opportunities and protections. In 2021, UNICEF ushered in a new gender policy (2021–2030) articulating our vision for gender equality in our programmes, as well as our workplaces and practices, around the globe. The Gender Action Plan (2022–2025) charts UNICEF’s way forward with a series of time-bound results that deliver lasting, transformative change for children, adolescents and women worldwide.
Our gender policy and Gender Action Plan are evidence-based, integrating the recommendations of an independent evaluation of UNICEF’s prior Gender Action Plans, various studies, data analyses (including on the situation of girls) and a series of background papers on new and emerging areas of interest.
UNICEF's key commitments
The Gender Action Plan incorporates both programmatic and institutional priorities, integrating a change strategy for gender equality across internal policies, practices and accountability mechanisms. Building on past successes and lessons learned, the plan specifies three areas of commitment:
- Integrating gender equality results across the life course of our programmes and Strategic Plan goal areas, including health and nutrition; education; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); child protection; and social policy
- Prioritizing the leadership and well-being of adolescent girls
- Strengthening our policies and systems for more gender-transformative workplaces and practices
Gender equality results
UNICEF’s Gender Action Plan specifies how each of our global Strategic Plan (2022-2025) goal areas will advance gender equality, from before birth through adolescence. This includes plans and targets related to:
- Maternal health and nutrition, including HIV testing, prevention, counselling and care
- Gender-responsive education systems, especially when it comes to equitable access to schooling, STEM and digital skills for adolescent girls
- Harmful practices (child marriage and female genital mutilation) and violence against girls, boys and women
- Equitable water, sanitation and hygiene systems, including services for menstrual health
- Gender-responsive social protection and care
Leadership and well-being of adolescent girls
This Gender Action Plan reiterates UNICEF’s strong commitment to the leadership and well-being of adolescent girls. Even today, gender disparities persist in the realization of the most basic human rights. UNICEF calls for every adolescent girl to have:
- Quality health and nutrition services, including for HPV and HIV prevention
- Skills for the future, especially those related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and other digital skills
- Freedom from child marriage and violence
- Dignified menstrual health and hygiene
- Social protection and care
Targeted, interlinked investments in these areas can transform vulnerability into opportunity, multiplying advancements for the world’s 600 million girls, their families and the next generation.
Gender-transformative workplaces and practices
UNICEF must be a global model for action on gender equality. This Gender Action Plan recognizes that UNICEF is not exempt from the pervasiveness of gender inequality. We’ve established clear targets for more inclusive, diverse and gender-equal workplaces and practices, such as:
- Gender parity in staffing at all levels
- A minimum of 15% of all funding received to be earmarked for gender equality priorities
- Zero tolerance for discrimination, sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment, including against LGBTQI+ staff, within the organization, with partners and in UNICEF’s programmes