The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and National Women Commission (NWC) signed a five year long memorandum of understanding (MoU) to protect and promote the rights of women and marginalized groups in Nepal.

NWC is a key constitutional body to advance human rights of women and marginalized groups in Nepal. The commission is committed to strengthening human rights with a focus on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment, in partnership with UN Women.

The MoU highlights collaboration between UN Women and NWC to strengthen the capacity of NWC in line with its constitutional mandate of protecting and promoting the rights of women and marginalized groups. The areas include:

- Capacity development of staff of NWC

- Policy dialogues on gender equality and women’s empowerment

- Monitoring of relevant laws and policies and human rights obligations

- Policy formulation related to gender equality and women’s empowerment

- Evidence building on gender equality and women’s empowerment

- Development of information, communications, and education materials on gender equality and women’s empowerment

Navanita Sinha, Head of Office a.i. of UN Women Nepal shared, “In Nepal we have had a long history of collaborating with NWC. Both the institutions are committed to gender equality and share a common mandate. With this MoU, we look forward to further strengthening our partnership.”

Speaking at the event, Kamala Kumari Parajuli of NWC stated, “This MoU enables us to implement some key priorities identified in the agreed conclusions of the 67th Commission on the Status of Women. These areas include digitalization and gender equality. Also, in light of the upcoming review of the implementation of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Concluding Observations, 2018, in Nepal we will continue to monitor its progress.”

Kamal Bahadur Rajlawat, Secretary of NWC stated, “We have identified key areas for action and are committed to its implementation.”

UN Women Nepal has been supporting NWC on its constitutional mandate of protecting and promoting the rights of women over the past years. In 2021, NWC developed an innovative tool to monitor the implementation of CEDAW Concluding Observations 2018, with UN Women’s support. Based on the tool, NWC monitored progress on the implementation of the 2018 Concluding Observations issued by the CEDAW Committee on the sixth periodic report of Nepal. This initiative by NWC has been regarded as one of the best practices for enabling accountability to human rights commitment across the globe.