Global Annual Results Report 2024: Gender equality
Delivering on a bold vision of transformative change for adolescent girls and women everywhere
Highlights
UNICEF remains committed to accelerating progress on gender equality through bold, evidence-driven action. This is particularly urgent given that no country with available data has met even half of the 16 Sustainable Development Goal targets most critical to adolescent girls’ well-being.
By the end of 2024, UNICEF had met or surpassed 70 per cent of milestones under its Gender Action Plan (2022–2025), driving significant gains in health, education, protection, and empowerment. UNICEF and partners expanded coverage of services for anaemia and HIV prevention while mental health support, for girls as well as boys and women, continued to grow. At the same time, more well-trained front-line community workers delivered critical health, nutrition and immunization services.
Institutionally, UNICEF strengthened the use of gender equality analyses to inform country programming, including in humanitarian contexts, and has increased gender equality-focused expenditures from 11 per cent to 14 per cent of total expenditures. This is on track to meet the United Nations system’s 15 per cent benchmark. UNICEF has also achieved gender parity in its staffing globally, including at the Director level, and continues to refine its policies to make the organization a more inclusive and transformative workplace.
Headline results:
- UNICEF reached over 30 million people in 63 countries with girl-centred initiatives through its Adolescent Girl Programme Strategy.
- Global partnerships, such as the United Nations Population Fund and UNICEF joint programmes on ending child marriage and female genital mutilation, reached over 10 million girls.
- A total of 82 UNICEF country offices established partnerships with grass-roots girls’ and women’s rights groups, 30 more than in 2022, with a total value of US$142 million.
