UNESCO in Action for Gender Equality: 2020-2021

UNESCO’s global priority gender equality took on new meaning over the past biennium. The years 2020 and 2021 have been marked by dramatic social, political, environmental, and economic changes across countries resulting from an unprecedented pandemic: COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic magnified deep rooted structural gender inequalities across societies and forced the world to question the degree to which advances towards achieving gender equality had been made since the first UN World Conference on Women held in Beijing.

This publication shows how a collective work by all structures of UNESCO has mobilized an extraordinary effort to go beyond a necessary adaptation to a multi-faceted crisis and counter backlashes and strengthen the resilience of women and girls and the systems which protect and empower them around the world through education, sciences, culture, communication, and information.