The Joint UN Programme works to promote and protect women and girls' human rights through activities in six different cities: Izmir, Kars, Van, Şanlıurfa, Nevşehir and Trabzon. The Joint Programme is supported by the following UN agencies and international organizations: UNDP, UNICEF, ILO, UNHCR, WHO, FAO, IOM and UNFPA. To learn more about who we are, click here. The Joint Programme combines resources from the UN, bi-lateral donors and the private sector and partners with the Ministry of the Interior to improve political and budgetary commitment to and increase the capacity of local government and NGOs to promote and protect women and girls' rights and raise local awareness about women and girls' rights. The following UN agencies paschiative in the programme ILO, FAO, WHO, the Worldbank, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNDP and IOM.

The 2-year Joint UN Programme is designed to address persistent gender inequalities by improving the national policy environment, building local government and NGO capacity, designing service models for women and girls and raising awareness about women and girls' rights. The Joint Programme primarily targets national level decision makers as well as local government, NGOs and the general public in and around 6 cities: Izmir, Van, Nevşehir, Kars, Şanlıurfa and Trabzon. These cities were selected to demonstrate how participatory and coordinated cross-sectoral approaches can improve services, augment resource availability and improve the lives of girls and women in a variety of settings.

The Joint Programme will simultaneously develop interventions for local women and girls and improve the capacity of institutions responsible for service provision. The programme will identify the needs of women and girls, including the most vulnerable populations. Priority actions will be identified through a participatory planning process involving all stakeholders. These priority areas will be drawn from the following: education; employment; reproductive health; violence against women; trafficking; asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced people. Once identified, stakeholders will work together to design 5-year local action plans (LAPs). The programme will support the start-up of LAP implementation. By the end of the programme a national scaling-up model will be in place and the 6 cities will be evaluated for certification as 'Women First' cities based on commonly agreed upon criteria.

It is expected that the programme will facilitate a more coordinated approach to internationally supported initiatives aimed at improving women and girl's human