INTERNATIONAL: On International Women's Day, New UN organization for Women Looking to Future

As the UN prepares to celebrate the centennial International Women's Day, its new agency, UN Women is planning to make important impacts on the way in which both member states and the UN itself help women worldwide.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Joanne Sandler, currently a deputy director of UN Women, spoke of what the agency has accomplished in a mere two months of existence, and how it intends to advance gender equality and women's empowerment in the future.

On the International Women's Day, Sandler said, the executive director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet who is also former president of Chile, will be traveling to Liberia, where another trailblazing female, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is the first democratically-elected president.

UN Women offices all around the globe will be helping governmental and non-governmental organizations host their own commemorations of the International Women's Day. Illustrating the importance of UN Women's role, one region will even celebrate the holiday by holding consultations on the organization's strategic plan -- the document that will direct its activities for the next two years.

ENGAGING THE UN SYSTEM IN UN WOMEN

One of the essential purposes for the founding of UN Women as well as an important part of its mission is the notion that the UN needs a branch that will coordinate gender policy throughout the whole organization and ensure that each of the UN's many agencies and offices lives up to its commitments to women.

"We already have very important partnerships taking shape with our UN system partners and I think that is again, the intention of setting up UN Women is also to be able to leverage far more resources and support for gender equality and women's rights from the whole UN system," Sandler said.

UN Women, which was officially approved by the UN General Assembly in July 2010 and began its work officially in January, is the consolidation of the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI), and the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Sandler explained that these predecessors to UN Women did not have the resources to coordinate UN system activities on the gender front. She said that "the recognition that there wasn't a clear driver, there wasn't a clear focal point for a coordinator in all instances, I think was what drove the creation of UN Women in part."

The importance gender issues carry in the work of a multitude of parts of UN system is evident in the example of UNiTE to End Violence Against Women, a campaign that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon began in 2008.

"UN Women will coordinate that initiative, bringing around the table all of the UN organizations as well as other partners, in particular NGO (non-governmental organization) partners are very important, men as leaders in the fight against violence against women, and of course always governments," Sandler said. "So there are thematically specific areas, in which UN Women will need to coordinate at global level, at regional level and at national level which I think Ms. Bachelet is always careful to say, in no way relieves other UN organizations of either their responsibility or their leadership because all UN organizations need to take leadership around different aspects of women's rights and gender equality."

The new global organization for women will not only coordinate activity on gender issues across the UN, but also work to ensure that each part of the UN lives up to its commitments and policy priorities on women.

"When UN Women was created, it was in recognition that mechanisms of accountability for delivering on commitments to gender equality within the UN system itself have not been strong enough," Sandler said. "Most UN organizations have gender policies, they have gender strategies, but are they actually fulfilling even their own strategies is also a big question and what are the consequences for non-performance? Another question."

ENGAGING MEMBER STATES IN UN WOMEN

Aside from encouraging accountability in the broader UN system, helping member states on a national level is a priority for UN Women.

"I think that the discussions about UN Women have always been very clear that the test of UN Women's effectiveness is if things change at the country level, on the ground, that's where you need to see the change, where men and women live," Sandler said.

UN Women offers assistance to national partners in many countries, providing technical knowledge and financial support. In addition, it bolsters the work of UN country teams on the ground in their efforts on gender issues.

Sandler stressed that most member states already have policies, laws, and agendas on women's equality and empowerment, which shapes the work that UN Women will do in each country.

She said that it is important to ask what actions are being taken to work towards women's equality and then determine what the UN country teams and UN Women can do to help.

"If in a particular country has already decided that they want to see more women engaged in formal employment, or greater social protection for women, or more credit extended to women entrepreneurs, or a much more forceful response or effective response to the pandemic of violence against women, what is the UN country team doing collectively to assist that country to achieve those objectives?" she said.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN

UN Women also counts the inclusion of civil society as an important part of its mission. Civil society groups, and particularly women's organizations are considered very important, because not only do they advance women's empowerment and gender equality, but they were also integral in advocating for the creation of UN Women.

"Women's organizations, women's networks, women in civil society and women and men who are in government but whose jobs and passion it is to advance gender equality are part of the DNA of UN Women and have to be a voice in shaping what it works on and how it works," Sandler said.

She explained that integrating civil society can be a bit challenging at times due to the processes that govern UN Women, but that there will still be ample opportunity for civil society to get involved.

"UN Women is a UN organization and its formal governance processes relate primarily to bodies in which member states participate, whether it is the executive board or the General Assembly, but I think UN Women has a lot of potential and opportunity to create many different vehicles for inclusion, for consultation, and for very meaningful involvement, and it has to be meaningful, for women's rights organizations and leaders to participate," she said.

The creation of UN Women's strategic plan has already presented an opportunity to engage civil society. According to Sandler, NGO partners, government partners and UN partners are all being asked by UN Women offices around the world to contribute their visions for the new organization to the plan.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a commission of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), met here from Feb. 22 to March 4 in New York, providing another opportunity for stakeholders and interest groups to talk about UN Women's vision for its future.

Sandler said that at the CSW, Bachelet was able to have "really meaningful consultations" with women's rights networks, with so many NGOs and other partners who attended the sessions.

CORRECTING THE INEQUALITY WITHIN ORGANIZATIONS

UN Women will also, Sandler believes, set an example of how to combat the lack of voice that organizations and networks for women 's empowerment have within many institutions.

"Its interrogating a practice that I think we all acknowledge has not really delivered for women and girls and so starting UN Women is really just the first step in really calling for a lot more capacity, resources, and power," Sandler said.

At the UN level, she explained, the entities for women previously have not had high-level enough leadership to access to the upper echelons of UN policy-making.

"Now, UN Women, in the person of Ms. Bachelet, has a seat at the decision making table both around policy issues, programmatic issues and management and administrative issues, and that's crucial," she said.

Sandler explained that the elevation of UN Women within the UN' s hierarchy has the potential to set an important trend for other entities that deal with women's issues, and are currently not given enough of a voice and enough of a leadership role.

She said that this lack of voice and leadership is a visible problem, in everywhere from government ministries to the world of NGOs.

"There's been inequality in that way, just as there was within the UN," she said. "The entities that were set up to advocate for gender equality and women's rights including the gender units within the large organizations, haven't been equal to other units, and the formation of UN Women is also a very loud and clear statement that those days have to end, that those who advocate for gender equality and women's rights need to be equal to those who advocate for other issues, need to be at a similar level."

Making institutional structures fairer, Sandler emphasized, will not just benefit women.

"Ms. Bachelet has always been very clear that women's rights struggle is not just about women, its about equality across the board, in all of its manifestations and I think that's what her voice and UN Women's voice will be calling for," she said.