Improving UN Performance for Gender Equality

In June, the United Nations General Assembly asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to prepare a second concept note detailing the range of institutional options for improving the UN’s performance in gender-related activities. This timely request gives an opportunity for the Secretariat to assess its own performance as to the success and failure in meeting memberstates’ expectation, and the UN’s capacity to meet global commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and the implementation of the Security Council Relolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. What lies behind this General Assembly’s request for a second concept paper was a disagreement among memberstates over the “UN Gender Architechture” recommendation of the 2006 High Level panel on System-wide Coherence, heavily lobbied by NGOs, which proposed a new UN entity on gender to be led by an Under-Secretary-General level post on gender and women’s rights. The Joint Coordinating Committee of the Group of 77 and Non-Aligned Movement, China and India do not support the creation of this new entity and high-level post proposal. I could not agree more with them. I see no need to spend our limited global resources in creating a new bureaucratic structure when the existing ones are already doing quite a good job. And in addition, in my judgement, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its Committee are also doing an excellent job in monitoring the implementation of the treaties on women’s rights and the reviewing of country’s reports. As far as the UN leadership in this matter is concerned, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, himself, and Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, have done their best to move the World’s action towards gender equality, and at the same time, have tried to improve UN capacities in assisting memberstates to fill their needs and the identified gaps. The UN Secretariat already has many competent senior level staff to work on this gender issues such as Ms. Rachel Mayanja, Assistant Secretary-General, Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, and Ms. Carolyn Hannan, Director, Division on the Advancement of women. These existing UN offices should be strengthened with more resources to increase their capacities to assist memberstates as and when needed. The responsibility for achieving gender equality really lies within the countries themselves.

Filed under Gender Issues, United Nations |