A newly established agency called UN Women, devoted entirely to gender equality and the empowerment of women, has raised high hopes while also prompting concern (and see earlier WVON story).
UN Women, headquartered in New York, will start work in January. It will pool the budgets, resources and teams currently allocated to four bodies tasked with gender issues: the Division for the Advancement of Women, the UN Development Fund for Women, the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women. According to NGOs, this fragmented approach has proved detrimental as none of the bodies has had agency status, which in turn has hampered women's empowerment.
The hope is that with an overall budget of some $500m and its new panel, tasked with a huge range of activities, from education, health care and battling inequality in the political arena, the new agency will have the same standing as other major agencies such as Unicef or the UN Development Programme.
According to Paula Donovan, the joint founder of Aids-Free World."It is a magnificent step in the right direction. But now words must be put into action. UN Women needs an adequate budget and workforce, under the leadership of a figure capable of positioning the agency and asserting its authority."
A list of 10 names is circulating for the position of leader, including seven African women and the former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, still thought to be the favourite. There is also talk of a bid to appoint Mamphela Ramphele, an anti-apartheid activist and former managing director of the World Bank.
Let's hope that this really is a promising step up for gender equality on a worldwide platform.
More on this from The Guardian.
