51³Ô¹Ï

UNOCT Results of the 2022 UN-SWAP Report

The 51³Ô¹Ï Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) has made significant progress in fulfilling its commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. This is demonstrated through the results achieved by the Office in implementing the 51³Ô¹Ï System-wide Action Plan on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-SWAP 2.0). According to the 2022 annual reporting exercise, UNOCT exceeded requirements in 4 of the 17 performance indicators, while meeting requirements in 11 others. 

Led by UN Women, UN-SWAP 2.0 is a UN system-wide accountability framework designed to measure, monitor, and drive progress towards a common set of standards for the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women. 

UNOCT recognizes how acts of terrorism and the strategies used to counter them may impact women and girls and men and boys differently. Similarly, women and men may have various roles within terrorist groups as supporters, facilitators, or perpetrators. In line with the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and its 7th (2021) and 8th (2023) reviews, UNOCT strives to promote gender-responsive and human rights-based approaches to preventing and countering terrorism through its programmes and projects from their design to implementation and evaluation. 

The table below shows UNOCT¡¯s progress on all 17 indicators since 2019, when UNOCT began reporting on SWAP

Exceeding Expectations

In 2022, UNOCT exceeded expectations in performance indicators related to audit, policy, leadership, and knowledge and communication. This was done through three major advancements within UNOCT:

  1. The Revision of UNOCT¡¯s Strategic Programme Framework: UNOCT adopted a high-level goal on gender within its new Strategic Programme Framework (¡°Strategic Goal 5. Promote human-rights compliant and gender responsive counter-terrorism/preventing and countering violent extremism (CT/PCVE) efforts¡±). Gender equality is also integrated throughout the four remaining strategic goals. 
  2. The Establishment of the Human Rights and Gender Section (HRGS): On 1 January 2022, UNOCT established the HRGS to provide technical assistance, oversight, and quality assurance across the Office¡¯s policy, coordination, and programmatic functions. In this role, the Gender Unit reviewed approximately 50 programmatic documents, knowledge products and event agendas throughout 2022, in addition to providing guidance to strengthen gender mainstreaming. Furthermore, the Gender Unit completed two gender assessments of UNOCT programmes and projects approved/reviewed by UNOCT¡¯s Programme Review Board in 2021 and 2022 to assess implementation of the UNOCT Gender Markers and Gender Mainstreaming Guidelines in programme and project design. 
  3. UNOCT Gender Mainstreaming Policy: UNOCT launched the implementation of its Gender Mainstreaming Policy and Action Plan in January 2022, including the revamping of UNOCT¡¯s Gender Task Force. The Gender Task Force consists of UNOCT staff members at section and unit levels from all UNOCT branches. The main focus of the Gender Task Force is to support implementation and monitoring of the UNOCT Gender Mainstreaming Policy and Action Plan and making gender mainstreaming efforts more systematic and streamlined across UNOCT. In this light, gender focal points are currently coordinating the development of gender workplans for their respective teams.

When considering UNOCT ratings within the larger UN Secretariat and the UN system, UNOCT¡¯s performance demonstrates an 89 percent share of ratings meeting or exceeding requirements in comparison to 71 percent in the UN Secretariat and 67 percent in the UN system.

1 Percentage of programmes/projects assessed that year.

Moving Forward

In 2023, UNOCT worked with UN Women and the Controller?s Office to revise its gender marker customizing UN the system wide gender marker to the specific institutional context of UNOCT.

The gender marker measures the level of gender mainstreaming and dedicated financial resources allocated to projects and programmes upon parameters and standards inside the UN system.  The new iteration of the gender marker does not only measures gender-responsiveness of each UNOCT programme/projects, but also sets benchmarks for financial allocations towards gender equality. in line with the 51³Ô¹Ï Development Goals (UNDG) standards. 

In her letter to UNOCT Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Voronkov, UN Women Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director Sima Bahous thanked UNOCT staff for their continuous support and commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. She ¡°commended¡± UNOCT for its performance, while sharing her enthusiasm ¡°to build on the momentum of UNOCT¡¯s achievements¡± in the future. 

In the coming year, UNOCT through the Gender Unit of the Human Rights and Gender Section will make relevant updates to its Gender Mainstreaming Policy and Action Plan, while continuing to ensure increased performance in all areas of UN-SWAP.