On 9-13 October, 2023 the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Ombudsperson's Office convened a five-day workshop on strengthening the capacity of the Ombudsperson’s Office in advancing gender equality, reproductive health, and reproductive rights agenda across all areas of the work of the Office. This capacity-building initiative was funded by the UK International Development from the UK Government.

Dr. Aysel Vazirova, UNFPA international consultant facilitated the workshop. She introduced a systemic approach to reproductive health and gender equality-related issues, which highlighted their connections with the intersectionality framework and examined challenges faced by women, girls, men, and boys in a variety of socio-economic contexts. The approach was very well received by the participants and generated interest for a continuation of capacity building and gender mainstreaming in the Office activities. In addition, future cooperation opportunities were outlined during the workshop.

Following the workshop, the team of the Ombudsperson’s office and the UNFPA international and national consultants visited Lebap and Balkan regions and interviewed local service providers on the support and services on reproductive health available for women in those regions.

Background

In 2022 UNFPA CO established a partnership with the Office of Ombudsperson to increase the capacity of the staff in the area of the protection and monitoring of women’s and youth rights based on UNFPA’s normative agenda and three Transformative Results, which are guided by the international human rights instruments such as the Convention on the Liquidation of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and commitments to International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (ICPD PoA) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 5 based on Leave No One Behind Principle.