11 UN Women

Jessica Lawrence

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Introduction

This chapter introduces readers to the origins, structure, role, functioning, focus areas and achievements of UN Women. Although UN Women in its present form was created only in 2010, the commitment of the United Nations to and support for women’s rights was enunciated in its Charter, whose Article 1(3) describes one of its main purposes as “To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”

Within its first year, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) established the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) as the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Among its earliest accomplishments was ensuring gender neutral language in the draft Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The CSW has been instrumental on setting standards and formulating international conventions to change discriminatory legislation and foster global awareness of women’s issues. The CSW also undertakes comprehensive research activities in order to make a global assessment of the status of women, and collect data to support its recommendations. Extensive research produced a detailed, country-by-country picture of their political and legal standing, which over time became a basis for drafting human rights instruments. The CSW has drafted various international conventions on women’s rights, such as the 1953 Convention on the Political Rights of Women, the 1957 Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, the 1962 Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages and the 1967 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The CSW has also contributed to the work of other UN offices, such as the International Labour Organization’s treaty efforts towards equal pay for equal work. It has also focused on mainstreaming of gender issues and placing violence against women (VAW) at the forefront of international debates.

The CSW remains a functional commission of the ECOSOC, and UN Women serves as the substantive Secretariat for the CSW. In that capacity it supports all aspects of the CSW’s work. The CSW conducts an annual session of about ten days at the UN Headquarters in New York, usually in March, attended by representatives of Member States, NGOs, UN entities and other stakeholders to review progress, identify challenges and set global standards to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide. The sessions are conducted through plenary meetings, high-level roundtables, interactive dialogue and side events. At its 59th annual session in March 2015 the Commission agreed on new working methods, including to create a ministerial segment starting at the next session in 2016. The segment will include ministerial round tables or other high-level interactive dialogues to exchange experiences, lessons learned and good practices. The primary outcome of the sessions are the “agreed conclusions” on the themes agreed upon for the year, which are negotiated by all the Member States. UN Women prepares policy analysis and recommendations that form the basis for the CSW’s deliberations on the themes selected for each session and also facilitates the participation of civil society representatives in the deliberations. In 2015, the priority theme for the session was implementation of the Beijing Declaration. In 2014, it was the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. In 2013 it was Violence against Women.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this module, readers should know and understand:

  • The origin and structure of UN Women
  • The role and method of functioning of UN Women The key focus areas of UN Women
  • UN Women’s presence and achievements in India

Origin and Structure of UN Women

UN Women, officially described as the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, or the Secretariat of the Commission on the Status of Women5 was created by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in July 2010, and became operational on 1 January 2011. This entity merged four previously distinct parts of the UN system that worked on gender equality and women’s empowerment, namely:

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) United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, whose acronym is based on the French version of the organization’s name)

The merger was part of the UN reform agenda, aimed at consolidating dispersed resources and mandates for greater impact.9 The resolution of the General Assembly that established UN Women laid down a multi-tiered inter-governmental governance structure for it, comprising the General Assembly, the ECOSOC and the CSW, which provides support for normative as well as operational support for activities and policy guidance. It also has an Executive Board, made up of representatives from 41 Member States elected to three-year terms by the ECOSOC. In any term, the regional allocation is fixed at 10 Member States from Africa, 10 from Asia and the Pacific,  from Eastern Europe, 6 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 from Western Europe and other States and 6 from contributing countries (countries where UN Women does not operate, such as USA, UK, Saudi Arabia etc.).

UN Women operates through Country Offices in select countries in five regions: Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Arab & North African States, Asia & the Pacific, and Eastern Europe & Central Asia. Each of these regions has a Regional Office located in one of the country offices of that region. Regional Offices are located in Kenya, Senegal, Panama, Egypt, Thailand and Turkey.

Some country offices also operate as Multi-Country Offices, which are charged with coordinating activities pertaining to several countries in the region, such as South Africa, Barbados, Morocco, Fiji, India and Kazakhstan.

Additionally, there are four Liaison Offices, in Ethiopia, Belgium, Japan and Denmark, that afford the organization the ability to engage systematically with key regional entities and UN Member States in policy dialogue, advocacy for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and focused resource mobilization efforts.

Role and Functioning of UN Women

UN Women works on two fronts: supporting international political negotiations to formulate globally agreed standards for gender equality (through its assistance to the CSW); and assisting Member States to implement those standards by providing expertise and financial support. A third function is to assist other part of the UN system in their efforts to advance gender equality across a broad spectrum of issues related to human rights and human development, and to provide coordination and integration support. Thus, its role may be summarized as:

  • To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the CSW, 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 and training to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society.
  • To lead and coordinate the UN system’s work on gender equality as well as promote accountability, including through regular monitoring of system-wide progress.
  • To fulfill these roles, UN Women performs the following tasks

(1) Inter-governmental Support: An important function of UN Women is to support Member States in setting norms for themselves. UN Women assists Member States with research, data, compiling international good practices and lessons learned in order to assist Member States domestically as well as on the international stage, and to inform inter-governmental debates and decisions. Much of this work is done through the Executive Board.

(2) UN Coordination: Within the UN system, UN Women is mandated to lead, promote and coordinate efforts to advance the full realization of women’s rights and opportunities. All parts of the UN system are mandated to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women helps strengthen effective UN action by mainstreaming gender concerns, advocating for greater resources, and guiding and implementing joint development programmes. UN Women also plays a key role in increasing knowledge about women’s status in Member States in the United Nations.

(3) Training: Training for gender equality is a long-term, transformative process that aims to provide awareness and knowledge, as well as skills and tools to advance gender equality in daily life. The Training Center provides:

Technical assistance: content development, design, implementation, documentation, evaluation, and participatory methodologies to develop courses and training resources

Quality Standards in Training for Gender Equality in partnership with leading institutions Pool of facilitators and training experts

Periodic needs assessment on learning and training Learning facilities to conduct face-to-face training eLearning Campus for online training

Databases of training institutions, opportunities and resources Custom-made training upon request Training courses available on a continuous and/or scheduled basis

(4) Programme & Technical Assistance: Within countries that request its assistance, UN Women works with government and non-governmental partners to help them put in place effective policies, laws, services and resources that women require to move towards equality.

(5) Data: Comprehensive research and data collection provides evidence for the innovations and interventions suggested by UN Women both domestically within Member States as well as on the international stage. UN Women works with UN system partners to support the production and use of high-quality gender statistics in policymaking. UN Women is an active member of the Interagency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (IAEG-GS), which coordinates work on such data across the UN. This group’s work has included the development of a minimum set of 52 gender indicators, as well as new guidelines for measuring violence against women and girls. In addition, UN Women is collaborating with a number of agencies in a global gender statistics programme called Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE).

Several international instruments form the critical framework for these functions – particularly the CEDAW, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and the Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Focus Areas of UN Women

While acknowledging that there are gender dimensions to all developmental and human rights issues,

UN Women at present focuses on eight priority areas. These are:

  • (1) Leadership and Political Participation: UN Women provides training for women political candidates to help build their capacities, and offers voter and civic education and sensitization campaigns on gender equality. It supports gender equality advocates in calling on political parties, governments and others to do their part in empowering women. Other initiatives encourage young men and women to engage in advocacy around making gender equality measures central to public policymaking. UN Women advocates for legislative and constitutional reforms to ensure women’s fair access to political spheres—as voters, candidates, elected officials and civil service members. It collaborates with UN country teams and works with civil society on programmes so that elections uphold women’s rights, including to vote and campaign free from electoral violence.
  • (2) Economic Empowerment: Recognizing that women are disproportionately impacted by poverty, discrimination and exploitation, UN Women works with local actors to create appropriate innovations and interventions that improve the lives of women farmers, home workers, rural entrepreneurs etc. Major areas of intervention here has been reform in land and property rights, and advocacy to measure women’s unpaid care work, and to take actions so women and men can more readily combine it with paid employment.
  • (3) Ending Violence against Women: This ranges from domestic violence, to trafficking and to violence or assault in public places and in custody and can involve assistance with legal reform as well as social sensitization measures. UN Women supports expanding access to quality multi-sectoral responses for survivors covering safety, shelter, health, justice and other essential services, with a focus on prevention.
  • (4) Peace and Security: Women often have fewer resources to protect themselves and, with children, frequently make up the majority of displaced and refugee populations. War tactics such as sexual violence specifically target them. Though women have led peace movements and driven community recovery after conflict, they are almost completely missing from peace negotiations. Exclusion from reconstruction limits access to opportunities to recover, to gain justice for human rights abuses, and to participate in shaping reformed laws and public institutions. UN Women’s programmes foster women’s peace coalitions, justice and security institutions, responsive public services access to economic opportunities, and engagement in all forms of national and local public decision-making.
  • (5) Humanitarian Action: The role here pertains to women-specific interventions in crisis situations, such as earthquakes, natural disasters, widespread death, disease, famine, injury, refugee migration or destruction. UN Women fulfils its humanitarian role by providing coordination and leadership, technical expertise, capacity-building, and evidence-based response and advocacy to the global humanitarian system.
  • (6) Governance and National Planning: UN Women works with economists, planners, government officials, bankers and the Indian Planning Commission to ensure that public institutions and services, policies, and budgets reflect the needs of women across the country and assist with mainstreaming gender concerns into areas of public planning where gender may not ordinarily be seen as a factor. The aim is to encourage women to participate in public life not just as employees or as leaders but as citizens. For example, the sanitation concerns of women require budgeting for improved toilet facilities, safety concerns may involve investment in public transport, street lighting etc.
  • (7) Sustainable Development: The 2030 sustainable development agenda builds on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), drafted in 2000, which focused on reducing poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality, and ensuring access to water and sanitation by 2015. The new sustainable development goals, and broader sustainability agenda, aim to complete what the MDGS did not achieve, and go much further, addressing the root causes of poverty and inequality and the universal need for development that works for all people, while protecting the environment. UN Women has played an active part in the negotiations and underscored the role of women in environment protection.
  • (8) HIV & AIDS: Gender inequality contributes to the spread of HIV. It can increase infection rates, and reduce the ability of women and girls to cope with the epidemic. Often, they have less information about HIV and fewer resources to take preventive measures. They face barriers to the negotiation of safer sex, because of unequal power dynamics with men. Sexual violence exacerbates the risk of HIV transmission. Evidence suggests that marriage can be a major risk factor, especially for young women and girls. Many women living with HIV struggle with stigma and exclusion, aggravated by their lack of rights. Women widowed by AIDS or living with HIV may face property disputes with in-laws, complicated by limited access to justice to uphold their rights. Regardless of whether they themselves are living with HIV, women generally assume a disproportionate burden of care for others who are sick from or dying of AIDS, along with the orphans left behind. This, in turn, can reduce prospects for education and employment. UN Women works to make these linkages clear, in order to gain support for interventions in multiple areas that can reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and society.

UN Women in India

UN Women’s India office is based in New Delhi and is a Multi-Country Office, covering India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Four priority areas of the eight discussed above have been identified as critical for this region. They are as follows:

Ending violence against women

Promoting Leadership and Participation Economic Empowerment

National Planning and Budgeting

In India, UN Women works directly with the government and with civil society organizations, while in Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, the work is carried out though the UN. In all the countries, the aim is to help create national strategies to advance gender equality in line with national and international priorities.

A significant achievement of UN Women India has been its impact in increasing women’s political participation. So far 315 Mahila Jagruk Manches (women’s awareness platforms) have been formed with elected women representatives from 635 Gram Panchayats in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan. Almost 5,000 elected women representatives and over 17,000 women citizens have participated in these Manches. In Bihar, women candidates received support to file nominations and manage electoral campaigns in Panchayat elections, due to which there was a marked increase in the number of women canvassing during elections. More women contested from general seats, and not just those reserved for them.

Another area of progress has been in the raising awareness regarding domestic violence. Since 2006, UN Women has supported the implementation and monitoring of the landmark Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. UN Women has worked closely with the Lawyers Collective and the Government of India to develop important materials to increase awareness such as a manual for protection officers and a handbook for the judiciary. For the first time in India, the implementation of such legislation is being monitored on an annual basis. Four Monitoring and Evaluation Reports have highlighted important achievement and gaps. The “Bell Bajao” (Ring the Bell) campaign by The Breakthrough Trust, UN Women and the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women reached out to more than 130 million people and raised awareness about domestic violence.

UN Women has also assisted the Government of India to ensure that the census accurately reflects sex-disaggregated data so as to capture the true picture of sex ratios, education, health and literacy gaps, marital status, family structures, women’s economic contributions, etc.

Summary

UN Women was set up in 2010 merging four entities within the UN System to consolidate resources and mandates for greater impact. Its functions are threefold: to assist the CSW, to assist Member States and to integrate and coordinate goals and activities pertaining to women’s empowerment and gender equality within the UN system. It does this through various means, such training, programme and technical assistance for Member States, research and data collection, and policy analysis, both domestic as well as in the international arena.

UN Women operates through Country Offices in select countries in 5 regions, each of which has one or more regional offices as well. Some of the country offices operate as Multi-Country Offices, including India.

UN Women has identified eight priority areas to focus on, namely, leadership and political participation, violence against women, economic empowerment, national planning and budgeting, peace and security, humanitarian action, sustainable development and HIV/AIDS.

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Reference

  • http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw
  • http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/brief-history
  • http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/about-un-women
  • http://www.unwomen.org/en/how-we-work
  • http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/countries/india/result-at-a-glance