The United Nations University is committed to implementing the UN’s policy on gender mainstreaming. UNU has been an active participant in the UN System-wide Action Plan on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-SWAP; an accountability framework designed to accelerate gender mainstreaming throughout the UN system) since 2015 and actively works to meet the UN-SWAP 2.0 indicators that came into effect in 2018.

In the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of its research projects and other activities, UNU strives to ensure that appropriate consideration is given to:

• the concerns, capacities, contributions, and needs of ― and consequences for ― both women and men
• practices that facilitate gender mainstreaming
• equitable participation by women and men
• the intended (or likely) impact on gender equality
• gender-relevant lessons learned

UNU has made significant efforts to incorporate gender considerations in its research and capacity building activities; 83% of ongoing projects, including 96% of new projects launched in 2020, consider gender in some aspect of their design and implementation. All UNU institutes consider gender in their ongoing projects.

The most common focus is on raising community awareness of gender issues, as well as ensuring equality of participation, not only among project researchers, partners, and participants, but also in the selection of participants for training programmes and capacity building activities.

Raising community awareness of gender issues is another critical feature of UNU projects. UNU has conducted a substantial amount of research on gender issues within both the policymaking and academic spheres, covering the breadth of the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the design and implementation of development policies and practices.