This newsletter captures the latest updates on the implementation of the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) in Lebanon. The newsletter includes the key highlights and achievements of the WPHF programme partners' towards enhancing women’s participation in the Beirut Port Explosion’s response and recovery process.

UN Women and ESCWA conducted in-depth interviews with seven Lebanese women in politics who were all ‘first’s’ in different ways. This report analyses the set of interviews and explores the stories of each - the barriers they faced to political participation and the opportunities they leveraged. The report aims to offer policy makers and practitioners a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist when women seek political office in Lebanon.

In 2021, Alert, with the support of UN Women, conducted a gender-sensitive conflict analysis, zooming in on Tripoli and Bekaa, with generous funding from the Government of UK. This analysis has demonstrated how unresolved issues from the past, and particularly the civil war, are compromising peace and reconciliation processes and limiting women’s central role in these processes. It also found that women, young women, and young men coming from lower socioeconomic classes and peripheral areas are distinctly disenfranchised from meaningful participation in peace and security. Furthermore, gender, class, age, and nationality continue to be points of division & tension among communities in Lebanon that are often triggered by memories from the civil war. Thus, hindering cross-community and intergenerational dialogue exchanges and the capacities of women to lead community groups to build bridges across divides and work towards a collective peace memory.

Maharat Foundation, Madanyat Association and UN Women are partnering to monitor how gender is being addressed by the media in relation to Lebanon’s 2022 electoral process, including measuring the presence, portrayal, and representation of female candidates by the media. This falls under the broader work of all three organisations to promote gender equality in Lebanon. The focus of the elections media monitoring is on TV and social media.

In 2017 Lebanese parliament passed a new electoral law, in the lead up to the 2018 parliamentary elections. In the lead up to the 2022 elections, UN Women, in partnership with local organization LADE, undertook this study to better understand the impediments to women’s participation and representation in political life. This research paper aims to explore the current electoral law from a gendered perspective, to provide recommendations for reform. It also explores other factors that prevent women from running for elected positions on a footing equal to men.

UN Women is at the forefront of the global drive to remove gender barriers because we believe in a world of justice and human rights for everyone. Towards that end, and as the only United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality, we marshal the world’s best gender expertise and the considerable resources of the United Nations. We connect people in many realms, the national and international, the public and private, activists and officials. Together, our efforts are more than any of us could pursue alone.

In October 2019, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people took to the streets to protest the imposition of new taxes and the worsening economic, social and political crises gripping the country.

In late 2018 and early 2019 UN Women interviewed 87 per cent of the women who ran for Parliamentary election (75 of the 86 women; of the 113 women who registered to run, 86 made it on to candidate lists).This report summarizes their stories and experiences as candidates.

Lebanon’s 1325 national action plan comes is the result of teamwork between ministries, governmental directorates and all stakeholders, who agreed on the objectives to be reached within four years, allowing Lebanon to play a leading role in effectively implementing UNSCR 1325.