Operationalizing the Guiding Principles: The Human Rights-Based Approach, Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment, and Leave No One Behind"

Human rights, gender equality and the promise to leave no one behind are at the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In the context of UN country programming, the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) is the primary instrument through which the UN can deliver on its mandate and catalyze the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

To ensure that these guiding principles are mainstreamed across the work of the United Nations, UNSSC has partnered with several UN entities including UN Women, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Development Coordination Office (DCO) to develop an online self-paced course on integrated application of the first three of the six UNSDCF guiding principles: human rights-based approach, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and leave no one behind (HRBA, GEWE, and LNOB). 

The online course is targeted at UN staff, primarily United Nations Country Teams (UNCTs) and Resident Coordinator Offices (RCOs), although its utility stretches across the UN development system. Its aim is to bring to the fore the importance of the guiding principles in the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) process. It also seeks to increase the capacity of UNCTs to apply three guiding principles HRBA, GEWE and LNOB in an integrated manner to ensure that UN interventions lead to meaningful positive change in people's lives – particularly for the most marginalized and discriminated against to accelerate progress towards the realization of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).