RIGHTS: UN Budgeting Bypasses Women
NEW YORK, 20. February: (IPS): When the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) holds a two-week session beginning next Monday, one of the lingering issues high on the agenda will be the continued under-funding of womens activities at the United Nations.
The primary theme of the two-week CSW session – Feb. 25 through March 7 – is “financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
– We believe it is impossible to discuss financing for gender equality without discussing the structural mechanisms including within the UN system to deliver needed resources to improve womens lives on the ground, said June Zeitlin, executive director of the New York-based Womens Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO).
– Without a stronger, consolidated womens entity led by an Under-Secretary- General (USG) and ambitiously funded, the type of structural change that womens groups have advocated for over the last two years, and the efforts made by governments and international development agencies, will fall short, Zeitlin told IPS.
The entire 2006 budget of the only operational womens entity – the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) – was only 57 million US dollar, about two percent of the 2,34 billion dollar budget of the UN childrens agency (UNICEF) for the same period, says the Philadelphia-based Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
The combined budgets of all of the UN women entities – including the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI) and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) – totalled only about 65 million dollar in 2006, according to the WILPF.
“This is 0,005 percent of the worlds military expenditure of 1,2 trillion dollar (6 billioner DKR) in 2006, says the League”, in its written submission to the CSW.
In 2007, however, the UNIFEM budget was doubled, to reach about 115 million dollars. But its level of funding remained far behind most UN bodies and agencies.
The WILPF also finds it “unacceptable that despite many commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment, the figures tell a different story.”
A proposal for a new UN womens agency – to be headed by a USG – has remained in limbo, despite support from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The proposal can be a reality only when it is eventually approved by the 192- member General Assembly. But member states have been dragging their feet – either for political or financial reasons.
Jessica Neuwirth, president of Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, says funding for women, and particularly for womens rights advocacy, “is disproportionately low to the extreme.”
Both in the NGO sector and in the UN itself funding for women is exponentially lower than for other issues, she added. – Think of UNICEF for example, with a budget in the hundreds of millions, while UNIFEM has a budget in the tens of millions, she noted.
– It has long been recognised that investing in women brings high returns in development, peace, etc. Yet no one is really investing in women. It is time to match the rhetoric with funding, Neuwirth told IPS.
Zeitlin said the secretary-generals report to the CSW says that tracking of resources allocated to gender equality and womens empowerment within the UN system is difficult, including at the country and regional level.
Bans report also notes that recent discussions on reform of the institutional arrangements for gender equality in the UN have revealed serious under- resourcing of the gender specific bodies.
– This is an understatement, said Zeitlin, particularly when the UNIFEM budget is compared to budgets of other UN agencies, including the 3,5 billion dollar available to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
Kilde. The Push Journal
