The Italian Development Cooperation approach to the protection, welfare and empowerment of women and girls is fully consistent with UNFPA’s mandate.
Italy adopted a cross-cutting approach to gender equality, with a focus on ending gender-based violence, including domestic violence and violence in emergency settings; stopping harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child and forced marriage; strengthening health systems, including through training, health education, and access to services; and promoting economic and social empowerment by putting women and girls at the center of its development programmes. Comprehensive women’s empowerment is one of the longstanding priorities of Italian development cooperation. Women’s economic empowerment is one of the longstanding priorities of Italian development cooperation, and jointly with gender equality, was mainstreamed across all G20 pillars (People, Planet, Prosperity) under the Italian presidency in 2021.
Specific areas of collaboration between Italy and UNFPA amongst others include promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights; preventing and responding to gender-based violence, including in humanitarian contexts like Afghanistan; providing reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services; enhancing youth health to harness the demographic dividend; and promoting economic and social empowerment of women and girls.