World YWCA celebrates the creation of a new United Nations agency that works for women

“This is a landmark decision and has taken years of collective action by the women's movement," reflects World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda. “The global Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign speaks to the 2007 World YWCA Council recommendation, put forward by YWCA Canada, calling on the movement to advocate for an international multilateral women's agency at the United Nations and we will continue to support the campaign as part of our advocacy work.”

World YWCA Vice President Jessica Notwell believes the YWCA movement must sustain momentum around the GEAR campaign. “ The YWCA has been an importance voice in moving this resolution forward and we can continue to play an important role in monitoring progress on this resolution and holding Member States accountable to women and girls, " says Notwell.

As the women’s movement now takes action to ensure the new gender equality entity is created and made operational without further delay, the following talking points are available as key messages for the Adoption of System Wide Coherence Resolution by the UN General Assembly.

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.

Related Stories

• Urgent Action needed: Join us to build a United Nations that really works for women
• New UN Women’s Agency Now Within Reach – Urgent Action Needed

Related Links

• For more information, visit the GEAR website.