UN General Assembly Establishes “UN Women” Agency
On Friday, July 2 the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted a resolution that includes establishment of “UN Women,” the new gender equality agency at the UN. The formal name is the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. (A/64/L.56). This momentous action is the result of years of negotiations between UN Member States and advocacy by the global women’s movement.
PPAF works to promote the advancement of women in its activities in its focus countries and welcomes this new important agency.
UN Women will function as a secretariat and also will carry out operational activities at the country level; it brings together four parts of the UN system:
- the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), established in 1946;
- the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), established in 1976, and with its headquarters in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic;
- the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI), established in 1997; and
- the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), established in 1976).
The new body will be headed by an Under-Secretary General who will be a member of all senior UN decision-making bodies and will report to the Secretary-General. [Keep reading for more information on UN Women and on Ambassador Cuello's statement concerning a role for UN Women in the Dominican Republic.]
Advocates argue that through the establishment of UN Women, an historic step has been taken towards gender equality, women`s empowerment and women`s human rights as a whole. According to UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, through this resolution “We enter a new era in the UN`s work for women.”
INSTRAW and the Dominican Republic
In the UN press release discussing adoption of the resolution, Ambassador Federico Alberto Cuello Camilo is cited as saying his delegation
“‘shares the delight’ of all other Member States at the adoption of the resolution. The creation of UN Women answered the call of millions of women and girls around the world that had been waiting on the United Nations to respond to their needs. He hoped that working with and for women through a single body would allow the Organization to tackle the gender-related specificities of development in a coherent and efficient manner. He thanked the co-facilitators and Secretariat officials that had provided guidance during the negotiations.
He said that the Dominican Republic had a long history of fighting for women and, to that end, had hosted INSTRAW, which had been essential, among other ways, in providing logistical support to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) following the devastating 12 January earthquake there. He trusted that the integration of INSTRAW’s mandate into that of UN Women would preserve its training functions and ensure that its physical facilities remained in the Dominican Republic to guarantee the new body’s equitable geographical representation.”
Role of UN Women
The General Assembly resolution creating UN Women expects this agency to have both operational and what the UN calls “normative” roles: dealing with policies and promoting and monitoring international covenants and agreements, working with the Commission on the Status of Women, a separate intergovernmental body, and with the UN Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC.
As far as the financing is concerned, the operations of UN Women will be funded from voluntary contributions, while the regular UN budget will support its normative work.
According to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon “UN Women will significantly boost UN efforts to promote gender equality, expand opportunity, and tackle discrimination around the globe.”
For more information, see the text of the full draft resolution, which deals system-wide coherence under the agenda item 114, Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit.
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/64/L.56 The final resolution, not yet posted, is: A/RES/64/289. See also:
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