On 2 July the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to create a new UN entity to accelerate progress towards meeting the needs of women and girls worldwide. Called ‘UN Women’, the entity is to be operational from January 2011 and will combine the mandates of existing UN bodies dealing with women's empowerment and gender equality.
The UN has made significant progress in advancing gender equality, for instance through landmark agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, but inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society.
All over the world, women and girls suffer violence and discrimination, and high rates of maternal mortality continue to be a cause for global shame (Millennium Development Goal 5 on reducing maternal mortality is the Goal towards which the least progress has been made). The UN has faced serious challenges in its efforts to remedy these ills – such as inadequate funding and no single voice within the UN system to drive this work.
UN Women has been created to address these challenges. It will merge and build on the work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system: the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW); the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW); Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI); and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
In addition to continuing to fulfil the mandates of these bodies, UN Women will lead on promoting the accountability of the UN system in its work on gender equality and women's empowerment.
UN Women will therefore have two key functions:
1) supporting intergovernmental bodies such as the Commission on the Status of Women in developing policies, global standards and norms (to be funded from the UN’s regular budget)
2) working with Member States and civil society to provide support to countries requesting help with implementing these norms (to be funded by voluntary contributions)
The General Assembly has indicated that $500 million – double the current combined annual budgets of UNIFEM, DAW, INSTRAW and OSAGI but still far smaller than UNICEF's $3 billion budget – is the minimum investment needed for UN Women. An Under-Secretary- General will be appointed to lead the new body, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has requested that Member States and civil society suggest suitable candidates.
Mr Ban hailed the creation of UN Women as a major achievement and an important step in the "wider effort to strengthen UN system-wide coherence". He said that that the new entity "is a recognition of a simple truth: Equality for women and girls is not only a basic human right, it is a social and economic imperative. Where women are educated and empowered, economies are more productive and strong. Where women are fully represented, societies are more peaceful and stable."
http://www.una.org.uk/news/2010/02.07.2010.htm
Related Links:
Click here to read the Secretary-General’s statement
Click here to access the new ‘UN Women’ website