Over the next 5 years, UNESCO will:
- reach 28 million learners in 80 countries with quality gender-transformative teaching and learning that promotes gender equality;
- hold countries to account on their commitments to gender equality in and through education in our role as the officially recognised source for cross-nationally comparative data on SDG 4 and through annual in-depth analyses of trends and strategies to address gender disparities in education;
- monitor the status of 195 countries’ legal frameworks on girls’ and women’s education and support national legal and policy reforms and sector plans to ensure girls’ and women’s right to education;
- lead global coordination to support girls’ education in the wake of COVID-19 through UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition’s Gender Flagship;
- UNESCO will invest 30 million USD.
Turning Words into Action, UNESCO will
Financial
- strengthen education systems to be gender-transformative and promote gender equality and empower girls and women through education for a better life and future.
Advocacy
- work with media and other partners to lead global, regional and national-level advocacy, awareness-raising and the delivery of high-impact and gender-transformative messages for strategic action, including through UNESCO’s Keeping Girls in the Picture global campaign which has already reached over 360 million people.
- co-convene with UN Women the Global Working Group to End School-Related Gender-Based Violence, to generate knowledge and standards, and undertake joint evidencebased advocacy.
- recognise and award outstanding and innovative practice and leverage learning and action through the UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education.
Policy
- support national partners to establish better legal, policy and planning frameworks to advance girls’ and women’s right to education.
- provide technical assistance to national partners to formulate, implement and monitor gender-responsive education sector plans and budgets, including through the Gender at the Centre Initiative, supporting 8 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
- lead efforts to support planning that considers the gender dimensions of COVID-19 school closures and catalyse cooperation, including through the Global Education Coalition’s Gender Flagship’s and our Building Back Equal: Girls’ Back to School Guide.
Programmatic
- through the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, lead the global monitoring of progress towards SDG 4, and support greater accountability for commitments to gender equality in and through education.
- promote the integration of evidence-based curriculum content on prevention of gender-based violence in 80 countries, and invest in training of teachers notably through our landmark Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (O3) programme in 33 countries in sub-Saharan Africa where 1 million teachers will be reached by 2026.
- support national partners to address gender gaps in educational choice and achievement, particularly in technical and vocational education and training and STEM in over 30 countries.
Research
- publish annual in-depth analyses of trends and strategies to address gender disparities in and through education through the Global Education Monitoring Report’s Gender Reports
- analyse, map, monitor and serve as the global clearinghouse for internationally comparable data on legislation to on girls’ and women’s education through Her Atlas, which aims to cover 195 countries.
- undertake forward-looking quantitative and qualitative research to better understand threats to gender equality in education including forthcoming research on the gender dimensions of COVID-19 school closures.