United Nations creates new body on women and gender equality

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Ann mentioned this in our Weekly Feminist Reader, but I thought it deserved a bit more attention.
The New York Times announced the launch of a new agency developed out of the United Nations dedicated to promoting women’s rights and gender equality, although the majority of the piece had to focus on the apparently icky name: United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (or UN Women for short).
I’ll do what the NYT seemed to overlook and offer the actual deets of what this agency will do, which is merge four UN programs: Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The collective agency’s goals are to:

  • To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms
  • To help Member States to implement these standards, standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it and to forge effective partnerships with civil society.
  • To hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress.

I always get concerned about the merging of smaller, multiple efforts into one, larger organization; often, the local organizing and attention to multiple, critical issues get lost within a more monolithic structure and identity (particularly in this instance, where addressing gender justice on a global scale is pretty damn complex). On the same note, the organizations being merged have responded with enthusiasm, saying being a smaller agency has been an uphill battle to gain funding and resources.
So will a larger umbrella organization be better in international efforts to improve women’s lives? I guess only time will tell. The agency will begin its operations in 2011; check out more info here and at UN Dispatch.

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