The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared March 14 as the International Day of Mathematics (IDM) to pay tribute to late Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani and some other female scientists. According to the UNESCO official website in mid-September through a proposal, prepared by the International Mathematical Union, UNESCO proclaimed the IDM,...Read More

Palmira Martínez, a blind professional runner from Mexico, is among the 70,000 women who ran for gender equality as part of the largest 5K race for women in the world. My passion for running started when I was 35 years old. Not being able to see was not an obstacle. For me it has been...Read More

International Day of Rural Women In most countries around the world, rural women and girls face daily challenges of access to sustainable infrastructure, services and social protection. The ubiquity of these challenges offers a large scope for change so that they no longer dominate and constrain women’s and girls’ lives. Rural women make up 43 per...Read More

Brazilian soccer player Marta Vieira da Silva is UN Women Goodwill Ambassador for women and girls in sport. Marta, as she is popularly known, wants to inspire women and girls to challenge stereotypes, overcome barriers and follow their dreams and ambitions, including in the area of sport. An icon and role model for many, Marta...Read More

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women   This op-ed was originally published in the EVE webmagazine “How to improve gender equality in the workplace” reached Google’s top five searches around gender equality in the last year. Interest in women’s rights is at an all-time high: this is a powerful moment to...Read More

Papiya Parvin from Debhata Upazilla, Bangladesh, has just bought a cow to start her own farm. She is also the first woman from her village who travelled to Tokyo to share her experience as part of a UN Women and BRAC programme that is empowering women to curb the rising tide of extremism in rural...Read More

Martha Benavente, from Tucurú, a small municipality in Guatemala trained for six months to become a solar engineer, and she is bursting with energy. She can’t wait to start building solar lamps so that her community can have sustainable energy at last. One solar lamp could sell for up to 200 Quetzals, a lucrative business...Read More