Under the umbrella of the 16 Days of Activism to Eliminate Violence against Women and Girls, the UN Women Training Centre and the World Food Programme (WFP) jointly delivered two workshops on Understanding Masculinities and Violence against Women and Girls from 01 – 04 December in Rome, Italy, for WFP personnel.

This training workshops aimed to:

• Enhance understanding about what masculinity means, its construction and reinforcement, and its connection with violence against women and girls
• Cause participants to reflect on gender inequality and power imbalances through analyzing masculinity
• Ask participants to challenge harmful masculine norms, practices and status-quo, and to foster critical self-reflection toward change; and
• Identify personal steps, commitment and measures to promote gender equality and end violence against women and girls at work and in private life.

This is the second consecutive year that UN Women Training Centre and WFP collaborated to strengthen gender knowledge and capacity of WFP personnel through training and learning. Such joint activity is one of many examples reiterating strong commitment of UN agencies to work together to end violence against women and girls.