Help strengthen the gender equality architecture of the UN
Model letters to use in this campaign:
This update provides you with information on developments in the UN reform process and to urge you to take action on a global scale to ensure that this process results in a UN system with the necessary resources, leadership and structures to enable member states to implement the commitments they have made on women's rights and gender equality.
The campaign
The campaign calls for action to support the United Nations (UN) High Level Coherence Panel recommendation to establish a women's agency within the UN system. The recommendation was made to, and accepted by, the UN Secretary General in November 2006 and put forward to the General Assembly. The adoption of this recommendation is needed to make sure women's rights are properly supported within the UN.
The Panel's recommendation on Gender Equality Architectural reform emphasizes the need, in particular, to consolidate the three existing UN entities into an enhanced and independent gender entity, headed by an Executive Director with the rank of Under Secretary-General, appointed through a fair and transparent process to those outside the UN. The women's agency would have a strengthened normative and advocacy role combined with a targeted programming role. The women's agency must be fully and ambitiously funded.
Background and developments on UN reform process
In February 2006, the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, established a High-Level Panel consisting of fifteen members to examine how to strengthen the UN system in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and the environment. The Panel subsequently issued its report in November 2006 setting out a series of recommendations aimed at strengthening the UN machinery at the national and global levels.
Thanks in large part to the lobbying efforts of women's and civil rights organisations, trade unions and other pressure groups from around the world, the report contained a number of recommendations to strengthen the gender equality architecture of the UN, including:
- The establishment of an independent women-specific agency that will combine OSAGI (the Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women), DAW (the
- Division for the Advancement of Women) and UNIFEM (the UN Development Fund for Women)
- The new agency should have normative and operational responsibilities
- The new agency should be ambitiously funded with a minimum budget of one billion USD
- The new agency should be led by an Under-Secretary-General
- The new body should not replace the responsibility of other agencies towards gender equality and mainstreaming, rather it should drive forward and co-ordinate these efforts.
On 25th May 2007, UN General Assembly President H.E. Haya Rashed Al Khalifa appointed Their Excellencies, Ambassador Hacket, the Permanent Representative of Barbados and Ambassador Hoscheit, the Permanent Ambassador of Luxembourg, to Co-Chair, on her behalf, the consultations on the Report of the Secretary-General entitled "Recommendations contained in the Report of the High-level Panel on United Nations System-wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and the Environment" as well as the report of the High-level Panel itself. The consultations began in an informal meeting of the General Assembly on 6th June. The Co-Chairs have been asked by the President to lead a 'transparent, inclusive and open process' and to report to her on their progress each month.
Take Action: The consultation at the General Assembly with the Co-Chairs on gender is taking place tomorrow. Therefore, it is imperative that pressure is applied TODAY as these consultations will decide the outcome whether the Gender Equality Architectural reform is achieved.
(Please send any responses you get from your UN Permanent Mission or any other information on this issue to simon.chase@actsa.org as this will enable us to strengthen co-ordination of advocacy efforts)
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