June 23, 2006

Gender activists appeal for a resourceful and powerful nodal agency in the UN for women empowerment and development

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

At a time when the whole world is debating over the issues of reforming the United Nations to meet the challenges of the 21 st century, the gender activists and civil society organizations have called on the global body to set up a resourceful and powerful nodal agency to carry out the challenging works of women empowerment.

Just as the UN has a separate nodal agency like UNICEF to work in the field of helping children, the activists have demanded that such agency be set up to work for women. “There is, indeed, an agency (for women) called UNIFEM, which has been doing a commendable job. Unfortunately, the UNIFEM has not been provided with adequate resources and authority,” said Bandana Rana, a leading activist and former chairperson of National Women’s Commission. Activists lament what they call as ‘meager’ budget, resources and authority to the UNIFEM compared with the vast responsibilities it has to shoulder.

“Compared to other agencies like UNICEF, UNIFEM gets paltry budget. It also is not able to conduct country programs,” said an official at the UNIFEM office. Besides, it also has structural weaknesses.

“UN reform without a separate, definitive track for women is a travesty. The vehicle that would seem, on the surface to best embody the hopes and needs of women is UNIFEM, the UN Development Fund for Women. But (presently) its not even an agency, it’s a mere department of UNDP, and it has a budget so modest and staff so small as to belie any possibility of an agency on a grand scale. I don’t belittle UNIFEM, it does its best, but its best is shackled by a lethal combination of parsimony and misogyny within the international system,” stated Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa , criticizing how the women’s issues are not getting the attention they deserve.

Women activists around the world are pushing for creating an independent strong women’s agency led by a high-level official with autonomy and adequate resources. “And given the past track record, UNIFEM has the potential to work most fruitfully for the sake of women if it is scaled up and provided with resources and authority,” said Rana.

The campaign to strengthen the women’s body in the UN has gained speed after the Secretary General Kofi Annan formed a high-level panel in February this year. The panel comprising fifteen members including heads of governments will recommend the SG on UN System-wide Coherence in the areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance, and the Environment. Later on, as per the appeal by the women activists, the SG has expanded the mandate of the Coherence Panel to include both “gender equality architecture” of the UN and gender mainstreaming, and has made gender equality a cross-cutting issue for all three themes.

The Panel is expected to submit its recommendations by the end of August 2006 in order to go to the General Assembly in September.

Women activists in South Asia have spearheaded the campaign to strengthen UNIFEM in the forthcoming UN reform process. A delegation of South Asian women who have been working for women’s rights and development recently met with Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz, who is a co-chair of the Coherence Panel, to put forth their demands in the process of UN reform.

“We understand that the UN Reform Process will review and make recommendations on gender architecture in the UN system. We would like to draw your attention to UNIFEM’s role and responsibility as the agency within the UN System working holistically and with consistency on gender equality and women’s rights. This agency emerged in 1976 from the call of the women’s movement to the General Assembly for creating an institution with the mandate and resource to give visibility and voice for women’s rights and their implementation. However our experience show that UNIFEM was not given the structure, position and resources to lead agency on women,” leading women activists from South Asian countries stated in a written letter they handed over to Aziz during their recent visit to Islamabad. The signatories of the letter include Prof. Savitri Goonesekere ( Sri Lanka ), Prof. Pam Rajput ( India ), Prof. Hameeda Hossain ( Bangladesh ), Prof. Mahmuda Islam ( Bangladesh ), Bandana Rana ( Nepal ), Dr. Chandra Bhadra ( Nepal ), Nigar Ahmed ( Pakistan ), Khalida Salimi ( Pakistan ) and Maria Rashid ( Pakistan ).

“We trust that UNIFEM will be recognized as a high-powered nodal agency to carry forward the agenda for gender equality. If such a nodal agency is not created there is a danger that all the gains of the past three decades on gender equality and women’s rights will be completely undermined,” they further stated.

South Asian women activists have hailed the contribution made by UNIFEM in strengthening partnership between civil society and governments, strengthening South Asian Regional Cooperation, giving visibility to women’s economic contribution and gender inequalities in data collection processes, implementation of Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) and Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In South Asian countries, including Nepal , activists are engaged in signature campaign, among others, to press for scaling up UNIFEM in the future UN reform initiative.

In Nepal, UNIFEM has been credited with successful policy advocacy on various areas including the promotion of rights of migrant women workers, anti-trafficking program, recognition of home-based workers, following up of BPFA, gender responsive budgeting, advocating for women participation in peace process and so on.

As such, it will be in the interest of entire world if the international body like UN takes note of the campaigns being launched by women across the globe calling for effective strategy and structure to deal with the gender-related problems.