Elite Mountaineer Joyce Azzam is UN Women National Goodwill Ambassador for Lebanon. She wants to inspire other Lebanese women and girls to follow their dreams and discover their potential. Azzam is one of the few Arab women and first Lebanese woman to have climbed all world’s Seven Summits. Following her official appointment as UN Women National Goodwill Ambassador, she tells us more about her journey as a woman in sports, her drive and what she hopes to achieve, in her new role.

Marina is one of 140 women working at established community kitchens in Beirut, Tripoli, Saida, and Beqaa, serving hot meals to underserved communities.

Fatima stands talls outside a short trail. Light pours over her face, dancing between the citrus trees and yellow wood sorrel flowers behind her. The trail leads to her family’s plot in Minyeh, a stretch of land that Fatima has been working on for years now...

A warm day, afternoon light trickling through the almond and olive trees at the Monastery of St. Joseph, Tomb of St. Rafqa. Sister Lea emerged out of the monastery’s arches and into the courtyard with a light-hearted smile, her black tunic robes trailing behind her. Behind her small frame and swift gait, the monastery was large—implanted on a plateau in the luscious green stretch of Mount Jrabta in the Batroun area North of Lebanon...

Jana Hassan Shami, 22, is a Management Information Systems (MIS) graduate from south Lebanon who lives in Beirut. With the economic crisis in Lebanon, finding work has not been easy. Jana joined a group of women trainees supported by UN Women and Codi with funding from the Government of Austria to learn up-to-date Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills alongside social and professional skills. Jana’s new skills will help her on the job market...

As part of a series of initiatives that have taken place in Lebanon to celebrate International Women's Day 2023, over 500 women and girls gathered at Tripoli Municipal Stadium yesterday, to take part in an 8-kilometer run that celebrates the strides, both big and small, made by women and girls to accelerate women's empowerment, participation, leadership, and gender equality in their communities, and Lebanon.

This International Women's Day, the United Nations in Lebanon celebrates women innovating in tech, here and worldwide, through the "Stand up for women" campaign. Whether in technology, sports, science, or the arts, we recognize innovation by women that is helping drive positive change and overcome our most persistent challenges; social, political, economic and cultural. The Lebanon campaign, launched by the United Nations Lebanon, and coordinated by UN Women, supports the global International Women's Day campaign – "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality."

The Women Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) is launching the 3rd round of funding in Lebanon. The focus of this WPHF call for proposals will be focused on peacebuilding and the protection of women and girls in conflict and humanitarian contexts with local women and young women’s rights organizations.

Lebanon's economic crisis, aggravated by the 2020 Beirut port explosion, has led to the widening of existing socioeconomic and gender-based inequalities, and in many areas, a halt and even reversal of decades of progress for women and girls in Lebanon. A UN Women study showed that the crises have caused an increase in the vulnerability of marginalized populations, particularly women. In this context, UN Women, with generous funding from the Government of Austria, has partnered with local NGO Mouvement Social, to create emergency livelihood opportunities for women living in poverty and affected by the Beirut blast.

On January 28, 2023, Joyce Azzam was announced as UN Women Lebanon National Goodwill Ambassador. The elite mountaineer, motivational speaker, and activist is a role model for women in sports and a symbol of hope and strength for women around the world. In partnership with UN Women, she will be supporting efforts to advance gender equality and women's rights in Lebanon.

Ramzieh Hammoud, 52, is a Lebanese farmer from Nemrine in Akkar, the Northmost governorate of Lebanon, 119 Km from Beirut. At 33, Ramzieh faced the tragedy of losing her 3-year-old son to a fatal fall. Devastated, she resorted to agriculture to cope with her grief in her own way, and found hope in growing life in soil.

Jana Abi Morshed, 58, has used theater to give a voice to girls in Lebanon for many years. She teaches performing arts, and uses it as a method to address the wounds of violence in Lebanon; to spur dialogue, to build peace and to support community harmony. In doing this with communities, she has witnessed first-hand the impact of violence and conflict on people’s lives, both at the national and local level. After leading a peace march in 2019, she decided to shift her work – from theatre to working exclusively on issues of cross-community dialogue and peace. Through a one-year scholarship from UN Women, in November 2021 she began a mediation with the University of Saint Joseph's Centre for Professional Mediation.

UN Women and ESCWA jointly launched a report on women’s political participation entitled “Women at the Table: Insights from Lebanese Women in Politics”. The report analyses a set of seven in-depth interviews with female Lebanese political actors and explores the challenges and opportunities they faced in office.

Today begins the global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) (25 November - 10 December). On this occasion, the United Nations System in Lebanon, the Gender Working Group (GWG), the Gender-Based Violence Working Group (GBV WG) and the National Commission for Lebanese Women (NCLW) are joining forces, to create awareness and momentum to prevent and eliminate Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) and catalyze change.

When women work, economies grow. Lebanon has a host of well-educated and talented women; empowering them to participate equally in the economic recovery presents an opportunity that Lebanon cannot afford to miss – it is “smart economics”. The socio-economic crisis has brought Lebanon to the brink of total collapse and deepened disparities in a country that was already one of the most unequal countries in the world . Those hit the hardest by the crisis are women and children in poor and vulnerable communities.

Salma*, 26, a Lebanese mother of 3 girls, was 13 years old when she eloped with her 16-year-old next door neighbor. Looking to escape her abusive stepmother, she thought marriage would offer her liberty. Instead, it opened a door to further abuse and violence.

The provision of care is changing in many different and profound ways around the world. Perhaps nowhere has the scale of change been as rapid and dramatic as in Lebanon where, traditionally, families have relied on under-paid workers through Lebanon’s kafala system to meet their care needs – but where this is becoming increasingly difficult with the country’s economic collapse.

The Ambassador of Japan to Lebanon, H.E. Takeshi Okubo, UN Women, ACTED and social enterprise Roof & Roots, jointly inaugurated a women-led manufacturing unit in Jabal Mohsen, Tripoli, which is producing quality, low-cost sanitary pads for women and girls within the area. The manufacturing unit aims to provide a local and sustainable solution for meeting the increased demand for menstrual hygiene products that has been generated by Lebanon’s current crisis, while also promoting the Lebanese economy and women’s engagement in the labour market.

Women are essential actors of peacebuilding. Although the efforts of women in building peace often go unnoticed, women across conflict-affected countries in the Arab region have been instrumental in diffusing tensions and mediating conflicts in their own communities. In Lebanon, women contribute to fulfilling peace in different ways. While Ruba seeks peace through leading a calm and happy life at home, Nada focuses on raising peaceful children who are supportive of women empowerment, and Raneen prioritizes hindering the spread of fake news to sustain a peaceful community.

Two years after the deadly explosion that hit the Beirut Port on 4 August 2020, killing more than 200 people and displacing more than 300,000 men and women, people’s lives, including those of women and girls residing in the affected areas, are still severely impacted. To address the emerging needs of affected women and girls living in vulnerability, UN Women partnered with Mouvement Social, a national NGO, to provide vocational and life skills training for affected women as part of the “Emergency Livelihoods for Affected Marginalized Populations in the Beirut Explosion Area” project implemented jointly with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and generously supported by the Government of Austria.