“It is pause for thought that this cost in terms of GDP of violence against women and girls in Grenada is 5.24%. These are significant resources that could be directed elsewhere. This is an area that I hope as duty bearers we can look at closely with a gender-budgeting lens, our new way of doing business."

When Hurricane Beryl tore through the Caribbean in early summer, it left a trail of destroyed homes, unpassable roads, and ruined local infrastructure. As nations begin to rebuild after Beryl and brace themselves for even more storms, UN Women has been on the ground and working to ensure that women are fully integrated into recovery efforts.

The United Nations Joint Programme, "Modernisation of the Social Protection Systems in Jamaica, Towards an Adaptive, Shock Responsive, Inclusive System" has concluded after a robust programme of work which enhanced social protection payment systems while strengthening the capacity of government to respond to the most vulnerable Jamaicans during emergencies.

The Barbados Statistical Service (BSS) and UN Women Multi-Country Office (MCO) - Caribbean have partnered to implement a regional initiative aimed at determining the contribution of unpaid domestic care work to the economy, introducing targeted questions to the Continuous Labour Force Survey.

With the support of the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative in Jamaica, UN Women hosted a four-day Civil Society Organisations’ Capacity Strengthening Retreat that brought together women’s rights groups, community-based organisations and other CSOs working with marginalized groups where training and dialogue were provided focusing on legal literacy, the implementation of community-based GBV programmes for key vulnerable populations and the creation of proposals to secure technical assistance and grants, which included skills building in finance planning and monitoring and evaluation.

The Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians of CARICOM this week at its 48th meeting, endorsed the UN Women MCO-Caribbean commissioned CARICOM Guidelines and Protocols on the Collection and Use of Administrative Data on VAWG. Administrative data reflects what is recorded/captured by an agency or service provider interacting with victims or survivors or perpetrators of gender-based violence.

Under the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, UN Women implementing partner Atlantic Council brought together UN agencies, Government officials from several departments, civil society representatives, academics and students to discuss the challenges and opportunities around ending GBV and enhancing women’s economic empowerment.

The UN Women Multi-Country Office (MCO) - Caribbean, seeks to partner with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Trinidad and Tobago, to rollout and implement the UN Women Foundations Programme to continue engagement with men and boys, the security and justice sector, and within marginalised and vulnerable communities

With a starting injection of close to one million dollars, the United Nations and the Government of Bermuda put their new cooperation framework into action by launching a programme to close the business financing gaps that particularly affect women, the youth and people living with disabilities.

The United Nations Joint SDG Fund has injected nearly $1 million into this programme which takes steps to facilitate the sustainable economic empowerment of women, youth and people with disabilities and their greater access to financial mechanisms, knowledge sharing and capacity building particularly in areas of agribusiness and fishing.

This inaugural issue of the Caribbean Regional Spotlight Initiative Newsletter highlights foundational elements established so far to ensure the success of the regional programme.