Community insights

Shaping a gender-responsive Global Gateway

As the European Union launched consultations on its next Gender Action Plan for external action, GAP IV, UN Women brought together EU institutions, governments, development agencies, financial institutions, companies and civil society to consider how gender equality can be embedded across Global Gateway investments.

After twin earthquakes hit Venezuela in June, private-sector signatories of the Women's Empowerment Principles turned their core capabilities toward the communities that needed them most.

In La Guaira, the ground shook twice in under a minute. On 24 June, two earthquakes — magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 — tore through Venezuela's central-northern region, followed by more than a thousand aftershocks. Homes collapsed. Hospitals were damaged. Families slept outside, uncertain if it would be safe to go back in.

Jordanian law grants new fathers three days of paternity leave. MEHNA, a Jordanian manufacturing company and WEPs Signatory decided to go much further for new fathers. MEHNA extended parental leave to three weeks, six times the legal minimum. A single family-friendly policy shifted workplace culture and supported gender equality at the same time. 

Manahil Hameed grew up in a small town – Balochistan, Pakistan – where women rarely enter technical fields: but she refused to let that define her future. Through Schneider Electric’s Youth Education & Entrepreneurship Program, supported by the Schneider Electric Foundation, she gained technical and business skills in energy management. She launched her own women-led electrical company, becoming Balochistan’s first female electrician.

UN Women India convenes government, multilateral, and private-sector leaders — including a CXO-level roundtable with corporate leaders from Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs) signatory companies — to advance young women's transition from skilling to sustained employment.

UN Women India, in partnership with the Federation of European Businesses in India (FEBI) and with support from the European Union under the Women Empower India (WE India) Programme, organized a half-day session on "Equality Means Business: Advancing Gender Equality through the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs)" on 2 July 2026 at UN House, New Delhi.

The EU–UN Joint Programme Empowered Women, Prosperous Nepal (EWPN), in collaboration with private sector associations, convened businesses, private sector leaders, cooperatives, and aggregators in Madhesh, Sudurpaschim and Karnali provinces for a Provincial Workshop on Gender-Responsive Procurement (GRP) — with one shared goal: markets that include women aren't just more equal, they're more effective. 

To mark the International Day of Women in Industry, UN Women and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Colombia brought together partners for a conversation on “Gender-Responsive Industry: Tools and Lessons from the WEPs.” The initiative included a webinar and the promotion of stories featuring women leaders from sectors such as services, aquaculture, energy, and health. 

Every July, government leaders, UN officials and civil society converge on New York for the HLPF to take stock of the SDGs. This year, UN Women used the moment to accelerate progress on one of the clearest opportunities on the table: global supply chains, and the millions of workers within them.

Photo: Megan Gilgan, UN Women (L) with Dr Bärbel Kofler, Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development Germany (R) | UN Women / Ryan Brown