Publications

Flagship reports

UN Women’s Policy and Programme Division produces a number of publications, including two major flagships:

Progress of the World’s Women

Progress of the World’s Women frames key gender and women’s rights issues for policymakers, women’s rights advocates and researchers. It reviews how women’s lives around the world are changing over time, in the context of shifting socioeconomic and political circumstances, each edition focusing on a particular theme. There have been seven editions of Progress since 2000.

• Transforming economies, realizing rights (2015)
• In pursuit of justice (2011)
• Who answers to women? Gender and accountability (2008)
• Women, work and poverty (2005)
• Gender equality and the Millennium Development Goals  (2002, vol.2)
• Women, war and peace (2002, vol.1)
• Women’s lives in the context of globalization (2000)

World Survey on the Role of Women in Development

The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development comes out every five years and is presented to the Second Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which deals with economic and financial issues. The World Survey brings a gender perspective into economic and development issues. The last three editions have focused on the following themes:

• Gender equality and sustainable development (2014)
• Women’s control over economic resources and access to financial resources, including microfinance (2009)
• Women and international migration, addressing labour migration and the rights of migrant women, refugees and displaced persons, as well as trafficking of women and girls (2004)
• Globalization and its impacts on gender and work, and women's relative position within the household and labour markets around the world (1999)

Discussion paper series

The UN Women discussion paper series is a new initiative led by the Research and Data section of UN Women. The series features original research commissioned for UN Women publications and other activities by leading researchers from different national and regional contexts. Each paper benefits from an anonymous external peer review process before being published in this series.

Position papers

UN Women also issues position papers on specific topics:

• A transformative stand-alone goal on achieving gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment
• The global economic crisis and gender equality

Policy brief series

The UN Women policy brief series synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on key policy areas around gender equality and women’s rights in an accessible format. The series aims to bridge the research and policy divide by identifying issues that require urgent policy attention and propose a set of suitable measures to address them.