A landmark proposal for creating a powerful new United Nations womens agency moved a big step closer to reality last week, with the endorsement of a high-level panel on reforming the sprawling UN system.
– This is the most dramatic step forward in decades, for women and for the UN, said Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy on AIDS/HIV, who has lobbied vigorously for an agency that would deliver programs and services to billions of women throughout the world on an unprecedented scale.
– It holds the prospect of transforming the lives of women removing the worst poverty and oppression, saving lives in the midst of the AIDS pandemic and other massive health problems, said Lewis, who leaves his job at the end of December, but will continue to promote the new body.
Its creation is part of a series of recommendations tabled 9th November by the panel, which was appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is expected to ask the 192-country General Assembly to adopt it before his term ends on December 31.
The panel of 13 Prime Ministers and Presidents recommended the creation of a powerful and “ambitiously resourced” gender agency, to be entrusted with a dual mandate
– programming on the ground, by guaranteeing it a presence in every country office, on a par with major agencies like UNICEF and UNDP, and
– chief adviser to the Secretary-General on gender equality and womens empowerment.
This structure would make the Agency a full member of the UN country teams throughout the world, and give it stable, core funding and specialised staff. The Executive Director of the consolidated entity should have the rank of Under-Secretary-General, and would report to ECOSOC (the Economic and Social Council) and the General Assembly, through the Secretary General. In other words, the new agency will have clout (vægt).
Reaction world wide has been positive. Panel members have underlined the importance of their proposal, and their hopes that the General Assembly will act swiftly.
– I am more than optimistic, said Ruth Jacoby, director-general of the Swedish foreign ministrys development corporation, and a Panel member. – This is as close to victory as you can get, added she.
Lewis office said that the recommendation of “an enhanced and independent” policy, advocacy and operational agency for womens empowerment and gender equality, to be headed by an Under Secretary-General, is an inspired and entirely welcome remedy. If implemented and funded as recommended, the new organization will begin to correct over six decades of UN neglect and indifference toward women.
The Special Envoys statement went on to stress the importance of acting on the key elements of the recommendation: To make up for lost time and turn rhetoric into reality, the new organization will need a budget of one billion US dollar (henved 6 milliarder DKR)
African women leaders, who had encouraged the Panel to make such a recommendation, supported the call for serious funding in the weeks leading up to the Report.
In a joint statement, Liberias President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Graca Machel, President of Mozambiques Foundation for Community Development, and the Ministers of Health of Botswana and Kenya, Sheila Tlou and Charity Ngilu, underlined the need for major funding:
Let us put that in perspective: last year, UNICEF had a budget of over 2 billion dollar for children. Surely half of that would not be excessive for the worlds women. Surely ameliorating (forbedre) the lives of half the global population is worth one billion dollar a year, for a start.
There are important steps to take now, that gender advocates can support in their countries. Three starting points would be:
1. Endorsements by several developing countries in every region, to take the lead in ensuring the General Assembly adoption of the Reports recommendation.
2. Initial commitments by donor countries towards the one billion start-up target.
3. And, since the new agency for women will need a leader with vision, expertise, authority, empathy and devotion (hengivelse) unparalleled in the history of multilateralism – let the global and transparent selection process begin, with nominations from every part of the world.
Kofi Annan has endorsed the call for rapid action:
– I believe action can be taken immediately on the Panels important proposals for advancing gender equality and womens empowerment. As the Panel rightly stresses, the commitment to gender equality is, and must remain, a mandate of the whole UN system, he said, adding:
– To make that mandate effective, it is urgent to endow (forlene) the System with a single, strong voice on womens issues, based on the principles of coherence and consolidation. I hope, therefore, to begin moving this particular recommendation forward in the coming weeks, so as to enable my successor to appoint a new overall head of our gender activities soon after he takes office.
The Panel stated that its recommendation meant strengthening the coherence and impact of the UNs institutional gender architecture by streamlining and consolidating (sammenlægge) three of the UNs existing gender institutions as a consolidated UN gender equality and womens empowerment programme.
It explained: The gender entity would be a full member of the Chief Executives Board (CEB) and proposed UN Development Policy and Operations Group. The normative, analytical and monitoring division would subsume (indordne/omfatte) the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI) and the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW). The policy advisory and programming division would subsume (omfatte) the current activities of UNIFEM (FNs Kvindefond).
Lewis office said:
“We have great hopes for what the new womens agency can accomplish through targeted programmes in developing countries. At long last, the UN is poised to act on behalf of more than 17 million women living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and the additional 225 young women between 15 and 24 who will become infected every hour today”.
“It can now begin to reverse injustices that have forever been tolerated: the fact that one in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime; that women produce most of the worlds food but own just one per cent of its deeded (tilskødede) land; and that they make up the majority of the poor and illiterate (analfabeter)”.
Kilde: FN-systemet
