Coherence Panel

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.

November 2006: Coherence Panel Issues Recommendations to Strengthen Work on Gender Equality in the UN!
The UN High Level Panel on Systemwide Coherence released its final report on UN infrastructure on Thursday, November 9. Over the last nine months, the Center for Women's Global Leadership has been working with women's organizations from around the world to ensure the Panel made strong recommendations about strengthening the gender architecture of the UN. In its final report, the Panel has indeed made critically important recommendations, which, if endorsed by governments during this or an upcoming General Assembly session, would substantially increase the status and resources of work on gender equality within the UN. Since March of 2006, women from around the world, and our allies within and outside the UN, have made concerns about lack of proper attention to and resources for gender equality and the UN system known to Kofi Annan and the Panel itself. Our advocacy has been rewarded…

The Panel recommends creation of a new high-level Under Secretary General position on gender who would serve as the head of an entity that would consolidate three already established departments of the UN: UNIFEM, the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI). The new entity would focus on both policy/global levels and would also strengthen focus on gender equality at the operational/country levels.

CWGL and WEDO have initiated a sign on statement which calls for rapid endorsement and implementation of the Panel's recommendations related to the gender architecture of the UN. The statement has been endorsed by over 90 organizations from around the world. To read the "Statement on Reforming the Gender Equality Architecture of the United Nations," click here.

CWGL, WEDO, the Baha’i International Community UN Office and DAWN organized and participated in a press conference at the UN on November 9th. To read the press release and other materials, click here. To see photos from the press conference, see photo 1, photo 2.

To read the Coherence Panel's final report, official statements and other information, see links below:
- Delivering As One: Report of the Secretary General's High Level Panel
  http://www.un.org/events/panel/resources/pdfs/HLP-SWC-FinalReport.pdf
- Delivering As One: Biographies of the Panel
  http://www.un.org/events/panel/resources/pdfs/coh_bio.pdf
- Delivering As One: Ten ways for the UN to "deliver as one"
  http://www.un.org/events/panel/resources/pdfs/coh_10_%20waysE.pdf
- Delivering As One: Press Release
  http://www.un.org/events/panel/resources/pdfs/coh_prE.pdf
- Delivering As One: Media Advisory
  http://www.un.org/events/panel/resources/pdfs/coh_maE.pdf
September 2006: Briefing Note: Reforming the UN Gender Equality Architecture, prepared by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) and Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO).
August 29, 2006: Fact Sheet on Reforming the Gender Architecture in the UN System, for consideration by the High-Level Panel on Coherence, Oslo Meeting, by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) and the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO).
July 2, 2006: Gender Equality Architecture and UN Reforms, for submission to the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on System-wide Coherence, by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) and the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), and prepared by Aruna Rao, Founder-Director, Gender at Work. This paper briefly outlines the successes and failures of the current UN system in addressing gender equality and women’s rights, and puts forth several principles and characteristics that are critical to reforming the gender equality architecture in order to deliver consistent positive gender equality outcomes.
- CWGL and WEDO Briefing Note issued after Consultation
- Summary report of the High-level Panel Consultation with Civil Society: Geneva, 2 July 2006
May 8, 2006: Briefing Note on Women's Rights and the "Coherence Panel" in the UN Reform Process, the purpose of this briefing note is to provide you with information regarding advancing gender equality at a time of fast-paced UN reform. A number of organizations that have been working together on the UN reform process focus here on women's architecture and machineries within the UN, especially on developments with the "Coherence Panel" since the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in March 2006. (Spanish, French)

UPDATE: UN Reform and the Gender Equality Recommendations (December 6, 2006)

Suggested Next Steps and Actions

UPDATE: UN Reform and the Gender Equality Recommendations
(December 6, 2006)