Examples of successful partnership
UN Women is thankful for the support for gender equality and women’s empowerment it has received from its business partners, including:
Unilever
Th global, multi-pronged partnership between Unilever and UN Women started in 2015. An essential part of the partnership is the Women’s Safety Programme. The programme aims to socially, economically and politically empower women and girls to safely reach their full potential. The programme is implemented in Unilever’s supply chain in the tea sector in Kenya, Tanzania and India. Working with multi-sectoral actors, including government authorities, women’s organisations, suppliers, other UN agencies and partners, the programme also aims to develop a Global Framework to be applied to the wider tea industry and other commodities over time.
In 2019, Unilever and UN Women kicked-off another signature programme: WeLearn. Through the creation of a global learning community, the programme aims to empower women to start, manage and/or grow their business. Through tailored online learning opportunities, UN Women and Unilever will help women build their skills in a range of subjects including business management and financial literacy and competence, so that they can thrive and rise to their true entrepreneurial potential. In 2019, the project pilots in Indonesia, which will function as the incubation of a sustainable, scalable and replicable model.
Benetton Group
UN Women partnered with Benetton Group in a global media campaign to call for attention towards ending all forms of violence and discrimination against women. The campaign involved the use of an image and online videos that were published by a wide range of international press and on social networks. The widespread media served as a reminder to people that women should no longer have to put up with discomfort, suffering or a life of misery: and they should be able to choose to be themselves and not what their partners, men, religion or society would like them to be.
In Asia and the Pacific, the Benetton Group supported UN Women’s work to empower women in the ready-made garment (RMG) industry in Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2016-2017. In Bangladesh, the programme aimed to remove gender-based violence barriers and increase women garment workers’ productive skills and financial literacy, contributing to sustainable and empowering livelihoods. In Pakistan, the programme worked with five garment factories to strengthen their systems and policies to create an enabling, harassment free environment for women and provide them with access to decent working conditions and income.
Proya Cosmetics
Proya Cosmetics and UN Women’s partnership in China spans equal employment, labour protection, climate change and disaster risk reduction, and corporate social responsibility. Proya has also supported the China Gender Fund for Research and Advocacy to advance evidence-based advocacy and social dialogue on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the country. A notable impact of the partnership was the production and dissemination of the research report “Gender dimensions of vulnerability to climate change in China” in English and Mandarin.
The report provided new evidence on the differential impacts of climate change and disasters on men and women. At the time of publication, the report represented the most comprehensive research available on gender and climate change in China. The dissemination of the research findings by UN Women and UN Women’s partners resulted in enhancing the knowledge about gender-differentiated impacts of climate change and disasters of more than 150,000 people.
SAP China
Through the “SHE CAN Women Entrepreneurs Digital Empowerment” project, UN Women and SAP China aim to enhance the capacities of women entrepreneurs to utilize digital transformations and promote gender equality in China. As a component of the “Women’s Access to Equal Employment and Leadership in China Programme”, the project focuses on economically empowering women entrepreneurs, promoting their career development and building their capacity to advocate for gender equal employment rights.
The project’s target group consists of women owners or leaders of large companies and women owners or starters of micro-businesses, preferably from underprivileged rural areas, and the project aims to reach 500 women entrepreneurs directly and 100,00 indirectly.