UN Women - Internship Push Forward Gender equality and Women’s Empowerment Turkiye

Background:

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

As the lead UN entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women, UN Women plays a central role in advancing global norms and standards, supporting their implementation at regional and national levels. The UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECARO), established in Istanbul, Türkiye, in 2014, provides strategic guidance, technical support, and coordination to country-level efforts across the region.

ECARO collaborates with national gender equality mechanisms, governments, civil society, the private sector, and UN system partners to promote transformative change for women and girls.

Across Europe and Central Asia (ECA), gender equality progress is under acute threat. Regressive narratives, legal rollbacks, and shrinking civic space have led to a marked backlash against women’s rights, feminist movements, and civil society actors. Rising anti-rights narratives, democratic backsliding, legal and policy regressions, and shrinking civic space have intensified backlash against women’s rights, feminist movements, and gender justice actors.

These trends intersect with rising authoritarianism, nationalism, digital repression, and geopolitical instability, posing a systemic risk to inclusive governance and sustainable development.

In response, UN Women’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECARO) has taken succinct steps towards regionalizing UN Women’s global Push Forward Strategy, aiming to shift the narrative from reactive defense to proactive momentum-building. The Regional Push Forward Strategy and its accompanied Implementation Guide for ECA aims to provide a framework to coordinate system-wide responses, align programming around key leverage points, and strengthen partnerships with civil society, governments, and the UN system.

It shall align with the newly approved UN Women ECARO’s Strategic Note (2026–2029) and complements ongoing efforts to integrate gender-transformative approaches at a regional- and country-level.

This internship will support the work of the Push Forward Task Force in finalizing, piloting and implementing the Regional Push Forward Strategy for Europe and Central Asia. The intern will contribute to strengthening coordination across regional and country-level work streams, deepening collaboration with Country Offices and supporting engagement with HQ colleagues, including the Civil Society Division, to ensure alignment between regional implementation, global learning and cross-regional knowledge exchange.

The internship is intended for a candidate with strong research experience who can help build on ECARO’s regional research initiative on gender push-back narratives, including by supporting analysis, synthesis and documentation of findings, practices and emerging trends. Working in close collaboration with regional and HQ colleagues, the intern will contribute to evidence-based, politically informed and strategically coordinated effort to advance gender equality in increasingly complex and contested contexts.

Under the overall guidance of the designated supervisor, the intern will support the work of the Push Forward Task Force in advancing the finalization, piloting and implementation of the Regional Push Forward Strategy for Europe and Central Asia. The intern will contribute to research, coordination, analysis and knowledge management, working closely with ECARO colleagues, Country Offices and HQ colleagues, including the Civil Society Division.

• Supporting research and analysis on gender push-back narratives, anti-rights movements, shrinking civic space and related trends across Europe and Central Asia;
• Contributing to the finalization, piloting and implementation of the Regional Push Forward Strategy and accompanying…