OCEANIA: UN Women Pacific to Undertake Extensive Consultations

Last week over 50 UN Women staff based in Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Samoa came together for the first time as part of the new UN entity, UN Women. UN Women – known formally as the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – was established by the General Assembly in July last year, through the merger of four former UN agencies and offices dealing with gender equality: the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW). The former UNIFEM was the only one of the four agencies with regional, sub-regional and country presence.

Following the inaugural UN Women Strategic Planning Workshop in New York (14-20 January) and on the same dates as the First Regular Session of the Executive Board of UN Women in New York on 24-26 January, the UN Women Pacific staff from the six country presences convened in Nadi, Fiji as UN Women operating in the Pacific region.

According to the new head of UN Women, UN Under Secretary-General Ms Michelle Bachelet, UN Women, the newest United Nations agency mandated to promote women's human rights and their full participation in global affairs will focus on strengthening presence and programming at national level.

Plans are being made to accelerate decentralization through delegation of authority in operations, finance and programmes from HQ to the existing 15 sub-regional offices – and from the sub-regional offices to national level. In our region, this translates to a shift towards more planning, budgeting and decision-making on UN Women's role at national level, starting with PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Samoa where UN Women already has offices. A shift to more programming in the Northern Pacific and in countries requesting more support is planned for 2012-13, pending the results of the consultations in country.

“Probably one of the more important issues is that we intend to strengthen the national capacity on working with women. We will continue to get closer to women every day, their reality and to better understand their needs, their concerns,” Ms Bachelet said.

As part of the current six-month transition to UN Women process, and in preparation for the development of the first UN Women Global Strategic Plan 2012-13, the Pacific Sub-Regional Office will undertake extensive consultations in our region to seek inputs on the way forward for the new UN entity. Consultations will be held with governments, civil society, media, the private sector, academia and the women's movement to ensure their voices are heard back in New York and that the first Strategic Plan is built on a bottom-up planning and visioning process.

The consultations will take place from mid February to mid March, and the collated inputs and results will be submitted to the UN Women Strategic Plan Working Group for consideration and incorporation in the Global Strategic Plan (to be submitted to the UN Women Executive Board by mid April for review and endorsement by 30 June, 2011). Following endorsement of the Global Strategic Plan – further sub-regional and national meetings will be conducted to develop the Pacific Sub-Regional Strategy and National Strategies for 2012-13. Full details of the consultation process across the Pacific region will be made known by mid February.