The InterDependent

With the next General Assembly session looming, member countries of the United Nations have been focusing in recent weeks on the details of a resolution that would hopefully create a more powerful agency for the global promotion and protection of women. A new draft went to countries on May 19. The verdict so far is mixed.

The women’s agency – the UN, hedging its bets, calls it a “gender entity” – is part of a larger multipurpose resolution about coherence and consolidation in the world body. For a start, that means creating such an agency is more about housekeeping than about bold commitment. That is all the more reason for governments that care about women’s rights and status to lean hard on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to name a strong person to head it.

A lot of worn-out language is mired in the proposal as it stands now – a repeat of the “gender mainstreaming” concept that has been around for years to little effect. Advocates of the new agency have consistently made a point of that problem. For example, it is difficult to find coherent (the new buzzword) links to women on the UN’s main Web site, or even in the online pages of agencies and programs. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, custodians of pledges to increase the participation of women through a series of Security Council resolutions, does not make evidence of such progress very clear or even provide comprehensible statistics.

It is, in fact, a measure of the era that the Security Council -- and not the General Assembly -- has been the force behind the protection of women worldwide. For millions of women, violence is the central problem in their lives, and it is not just in time of conflict. Abuse of women remains a global pandemic, peace or no peace.

The council’s active participation began in 2000 with Resolution 1325, now a landmark for women’s rights advocates. That document, and three others that followed, were not passed without a struggle. Several countries had to be dragged on board kicking and screaming about this not being a Security Council matter and/or that it somehow infringed on national sovereignties, the all-purpose excuse for evading the much-discussed “responsibility to protect.”

As the General Assembly resolution in its revised draft currently stands, the new agency (or whatever you want to call it) for women would have both normative and operational roles. In translation, this means that it would set or promote and monitor standards and policies, though under guidance from the Economic and Social Council, hardly a bastion of women’s rights, and the General Assembly. It would also work directly in the field with governments. Missing from the description, however, is any sense of the power to be pro-active.

The draft description is worth repeating in full: “[T]he Entity will provide guidance and technical support to all Member States, across all levels of development, and in all regions, at their request, and in line with its strategic framework, on gender equality, on the empowerment and rights of women, and on gender mainstreaming, through its normative support functions and operational activities, taking into consideration the diversity of women and their roles and circumstances.” [italics added]

Women I listened to recently in visits to various developing countries – Haiti, Uganda, Liberia, Timor-Leste -- left the impression that they had much more in common with other women everywhere than their governments might think, and even in the villages they don’t buy into “cultural” arguments used for keeping them down.

Another passage of concern in the draft resolution is also disappointing. The most effective advocates for a stronger voice for nongovernmental organizations focused on the world’s women wanted a role or a voice in the new agency.

Here is what the General Assembly is prepared to give them: It “Recognises that women’s movements, including women’s organizations, play a vital role in promoting women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of women.” That’s no more than a polite nod.

In terms of structure, the draft does not alter the long-agreed-upon framework, which will consolidate four existing offices and bodies: the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women; the Division for the Advancement of Women; the UN Development Fund for Women; and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women. The draft anticipates that this office will be ready to function by January 2011.

Two options are presented for its governing board: one that would make it part of the UN Development Program and the UN Population Fund board or one that would create an independent board. Funds for the agency’s policy functions would come from the regular UN budget, but its operational costs would be supported through voluntary contributions from UN member nations. That structure will not be widely welcomed by those who want to see representatives of the new agency hit the ground with enough money to make a difference.

The agency would be run by an appointee of the secretary-general. The term of office, at the level of under secretary-general, would be four years with one renewal.

In the field, the agency representatives would be part of country teams and would head the units on gender equality and women’s rights – but working under the direction of resident coordinators, the UN’s equivalent of an ambassador. This structure will be watched closely, since a new body in the field with limited money and no guaranteed independent access to governments could turn out to be as weak as its predecessors.

Who takes charge is therefore crucial. It will have to be someone unafraid to battle for space and clout, a talent for aggressive public relations and an agenda that will catch the world’s attention and draw support from enough donor countries to make it all work.