The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution that takes the next step in the process of creating the new women’s rights entity at the U.N. In the text below are the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) talking points on the passage of the resolution.

We must now push on our many remaining points to ensure that the entity that is created serves the rights and needs of women throughout the world.  We will be back in touch with suggestions for the next steps in this process. Congratulations to all for your hard work on this. (Charlotte Bunch)

Resolution adopted by the General Assembly (excerpt)

“5. Welcomes in this overall context the paper on “Institutional Options to Strengthen United Nations Work on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women” which the Deputy Secretary-General provided to the President of the General Assembly on 23 July, 2008; and requests the Secretary-General to provide a further, detailed modalities paper including as regards funding and focusing in particular on the “Composite Entity” option with a view to facilitating substantive action by the Assembly within the 63rd session;”

Xth plenary meeting
YY September, 2008″ (See full text, pdf format)

GEAR Talking Points on Adoption of SWC Resolution by the UN General Assembly

September 14, 2009

1. The GEAR campaign is pleased that the General Assembly expressed strong and unanimous support in adopting a resolution today that will enable the creation of the new gender equality entity to be headed by a new Under Secretary-General (USG).

2. Women and their allies from around the world have been advocating for three years for a stronger better resourced agency on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and look forward to its creation early in 2010 - during the fifteen anniversary year of the historic UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

3. We urge Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to immediately begin the recruitment process for appointing a strong leader grounded in women’s rights and gender equality as the USG who will lead this process of consolidating the four existing entities.  We expect a broad, open search process to start promptly so that the USG is in place and the entity can be operational by the time of the Beijing + 15 Review at the Commission on the Status of Women in March of 2010.

4.  Member states must also address in a timely fashion all the outstanding issues required for the entity to begin operations, including the mechanisms for governance and oversight.

5. Donor countries need to pledge the substantial funding ($1 billion) to support the proposed strong field operation that the entity must have to be successful in fulfilling the promises made by governments and the UN to the world’s women.

6. As civil society has always played a vital role in the UN’s work on women’s rights, we urge member states and the Secretary General to commit to systematic and on-going  participation of civil society, particularly women’s organizations, in every stage of the process at global, regional, national, and local levels including in the governing board 7.  Women around the world have waited a long time for the United Nations and member states to fulfill the promises made since the first International Women’s Year in 1975, the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) thirty years ago, as well as the UN World Conferences in Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995).

8.  This is an important and crucial step forward - now it must be made operational without further delay.

More information on:

- “General Assembly Adopts Resolution on SWC: Key Issues to be Continued”

- The UN reform… and what about women?

Beijing +15, inequality, U.N. reform, United Nations, Women rights