UPDATE: UN Reform and the Gender Equality Recommendations
(December 6, 2006)
The
recommendations from the Coherence Panel on reforming the UN's gender
equality architecture incorporate many of the suggestions made by women’s
organizations and networks. Now the difficult work of implementation
begins, including promoting their adoption during the inter-governmental
processes at the UN, without having them weakened. A number of processes -
both immediate and long-term - have been set into motion since the
report's release, but unfortunately the timeline remains unclear and
unpredictable.
The
General Assembly Process: The GA is expected to review and debate
the Panel's recommendations starting in early 2007, and right now the
report is being translated so that it can be reviewed closely by all
member states. While the informal discussions for the report now looks
like it will run between late January - March, there will be a more formal
process afterwards. Already some opposition is emerging to aspects of the
Coherence Panel report including to the "One UN" at the country level. It
is unclear how opposition to other parts of the Panel’s report will affect
the creation of a new women’s entity with a new high level USG
position.
Fast-track Initiative: Recently, there was also an
unsuccessful initiative undertaken by the Secretary-General Kofi Annan to
"fast-track" some of the recommendations in line with what he announced at
the Nov. 9 launch of the Coherence Panel Report, most importantly, the
creation of the new Under-Secretary-General position to head the new
women's agency. His proposal was essentially to create the position
by the end of the year, with the idea that in 2007, the incoming SG Ban Ki
Moon would appoint the new USG who would oversee the transition of
consolidating UNIFEM, OSAGI and DAW into one new entity. Kofi Annan
convened his Internal Policy Group to come up with this set of
recommendations for the USG, which on the whole corresponded with what was
laid out in "Delivering As One."
There has
been opposition, especially from the G77, to this “fast track” initiative,
and it has been scuttled even before reaching the GA budgetary committee
(the 5th Committee) whose approval would have been needed to create the
position. It is not clear whether the opposition was related to concerns
with the gender recommendations in particular, or concerns with other
parts of the report, but there was definitely a concern with the process.
The creation of the USG post would have sustained the momentum to push
forward the creation of the new women's agency. It looks likely now that
we will enter into a long inter-governmental process next year, and a lot
of work remains to be done to ensure that the gender equality
recommendations go forward and are not weakened during that stage.
Meeting with the Secretary-General-elect: The
SG-elect Ban Ki Moon has agreed to a meeting with women’s NGOs on the
Coherence Panel recommendations, probably to be held in New York in
mid-December. This is an opportunity to discuss the new agency, the new
USG position and gender equality across the entire UN system. Women in
South Korea have also briefed him on these issues, and paved the way for
the New York meeting. We will report back when we know more from this
meeting.
Some of you
have been involved in regional and national advocacy efforts to push for
the implementation of the Coherence Panel's recommendations, and in
particular the new women's agency and the creation of the USG position. If
anyone has more information from these efforts or has prepared statements,
we encourage you to send these to the SG-elect as soon as possible. Please
copy us as we can hand-deliver these to the SG-elect in the meeting so he
hears a range of women's voices from around the world.
Click
here for the statement we sent in November, now signed by 154
organizations around the world. We continue to use this statement in our
lobbying efforts.
Suggested Next Steps and Actions
For
quick action:
1. SG-elect Ban Ki Moon meeting: Send in
regional or national statements (or create them) and copy them to Lexi
Lenton at lexil@wedo.org so they can
be hand-delivered to the new SG. Some key messages could encourage and
welcome the creation of a new women’s entity, a USG position heading that
entity, an open and transparent global search to fill the position, and a
universal country presence with senior level staff.
For
longer-term action:
2. Fact-finding: It is important to map out
positions of governments, and we encourage you to talk to your contacts to
see what they are planning around this or get them engaged with if they
are not.
*Would they champion the gender equality
recommendations, or are they opposed to them? What issues do they have
with the entire report? What are their concerns, and if any, alternative
proposals? As you gather information during lobbying in December and
January, please share it with all of us. |