Gear up! Gender equality architecture reform/RAEG demarre! Reforme de l'architecture de l'egalite de genres.

During the 52nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), women's rights organizations from all over the world launched the GEAR Campaign. The Gender Equality Architecture Reform of the UN system (GEAR) aims at ensuring that the United Nations being a major global actor pushing for the implementation of regional and international commitments on gender equality and women's empowerment dedicates a unique entity that will create effective mechanisms. Of course, the UN does support gender equality and women's empowerment through its normative and operational work.

Four gender-specific entities in the UN have been playing a leadership and catalytic role in UN System-wide efforts: the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender (OSAGI) and the Institute for Research on Women (INSTRAW). Other UN agencies such as UNFPA, UNDP, UNESCO and UNICEF have committed to mainstreaming gender and often have programmes specifically targeting women and girls, but since it is only a part of their core mandate, it receives low priority. On the other hand, UNIFEM which has the mandate to provide financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies to foster women's empowerment and gender equality is under-resourced.

In February 2006, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened a High-Level Panel on UN System-Wide Coherence to explore how the UN system could be strengthened in terms of coherence and coordination in the areas of development, humanitarian affairs and the environment. Women's rights activists used this opportunity to pressure the UN to better address gender equality in the reform process, and consequently the Secretary General asked the Panel to include gender equality in its mandate. The resulting recommendations once adopted by governments, could make the UN system much better equipped to address women's rights concerns and needs by creating a strong, well-resourced new women's organization that is headed by an Under-Secretary General, and that has a country presence that can deliver meaningful results to women.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan formally transmitted the report with his recommendations to the UN General Assembly (GA) in November 2006, but no action was taken on implementing the Coherence Panel reforms. In March 2007, during the CSW, the new Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon endorsed the Panel recommendations on strengthening the gender equality architecture. That same month, the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and the Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL) convened a meeting of 50 women activists from around the world to develop a comprehensive and multi-faceted strategy for global, regional and national action to gain General Assembly approval of stronger and better resourced gender architecture. As a result of that meeting and the continued need for women's collaborative advocacy on this issue, a broad network of women's organizations launched the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) campaign, to mobilize women's organizations and allies throughout the world for the adoption of the new UN entity for women. The Campaign also seeks to ensure that conventions and agreements endorsed by governments are put into pragmatic action on the ground.

WEDO and CWGL have continued to play a key leadership role in framing and catalyzing the GEAR campaign by monitoring UN developments, information sharing and bringing women's groups around the world into the discussions and debates.

FEMNET, as a pan-African network of women organizations in Africa, is leading the GEAR Campaign in Africa and is collaborating with ten sub-regional women's rights networks to popularise and advance the Campaign activities. For updates and further information, send an email to admin@femnet.or.ke

Durant la 52eme Session de la Commission sur le Statut de la Femme (CSF), les organisations de droits de la femme du monde entier ont lance la Campagne RAEG. La Reforme de l'Architecture de l'Egalite des Genres du systeme de l'ONU(RAEG) a pour but d'assurer que les Nations Unies, etant un grand acteur mondial qui lutte pour la mise en uvre des engagements regionaux et ...