Advancing gender equality in global health: What can we learn from successful gender integration across UN agencies?

Amidst escalating global poly-crises and exacerbated pushbacks against gender equality and rights, recent advances in health equity are facing significant threats. Despite these attacks, a lot is to be gained reaffirming and leveraging the strengths of the UN and its agencies, including learning from the past by  understanding how successes were achieved both programmatically and institutionally. However, evidence on what works to advance gender equality in health, especially at these institutional and programmatic levels, remains elusive.

In such context, UNU-IIGH’s "Advancing gender equality in global health: What can we learn from successful gender integration across UN agencies?" examines 14 successful cases of institutional and programmatic gender integration across five UN agencies - UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, & WHO - to comprehensively uncover what truly works, where, for whom, why, and how in terms of advancing gender equality in health.

Employing a realist synthesis approach, the authors identify triggers, contextual enablers, and sustaining mechanisms that catalyse transformative outcomes, including the empowerment of women, girls, and marginalised groups, the inscription of gender and health issues on global agendas, and the embedding of gender equality priorities in institutional processes and structures.

Findings reveal that enduring success is notably premised on certain key factors:

1. Committed leadership and institutionalised gender expertise, with highly qualified gender experts at all levels - supported by core funding in gender architecture - to catalyse, accelerate, and sustain change
2. Organisational strategies with direct links between gender and budget/planning teams, robust accountability mechanisms at all levels, and measurable gender equality outcome and output indicators
3. Partnerships with feminist organisations are essential not only to implement gender-responsive health programs but also to ensure that these are contextually relevant, sustainable, ethically grounded, and rooted in local grassroot initiatives and supervision
4. Data and evidence-based reflexive programmatic learning drive action, responsiveness, and prioritisation of what works
5. Leveraging comparative and complementary advantages across agencies multiplies impact and offer significant opportunities for advancing gender equality efforts in health

Despite these elements for successful institutional and programmatic gender integration, the study also highlights persistent challenges as institutional gains remain fragile, often risking reversal if mandates lapse or accountability weakens, while many initiatives are still confined to a narrow set of health issues.

To address evidence gaps on what works, the authors conclude by proposing actionable recommendations for effectively mainstreaming gender equality across health agencies. These include investing in empowered gender experts, establishing transparent and enforceable accountability systems, and fostering sustained, cross-agency and civil society collaboration.

Please find enclosed the full article.