Recommendation by high-level panel hailed by AIDS envoy Stephen Lewis
New York (10 Nov. 2006) - A high-level panel on United Nations reform has recommended to the Secretary-General that the world body create its first full-fledged agency for women.
"We are heartened that the panel, appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan earlier this year, has reached the conclusion that women’s rights and development have always received substandard treatment in the United Nations system," says Stephen Lewis, the UN envoy for AIDS who has been advocating such a move.
In a statement issued by his office, Lewis called the proposal for the new agency to advance empowerment and gender equality "an inspired and entirely welcome remedy."
"If implemented and funded as recommended, the new organization will begin to correct over six decades of UN neglect and indifference toward women," he added.
The panel's recommendation goes next to the UN General Assembly. Member states’ decisions on three critical elements will determine whether the agency is created and becomes a turning point in the life of the UN and the lives of women.
Lewis threw his full support behind the panel's proposal that the agency be given a $1 billion budget.
"Let's put that in perspective: last year, UNICEF had a budget of over $2 billion for children. Surely half of that would not be excessive for the world's women. Surely ameliorating the lives of half the global population is worth $1 billion a year, for a start.”
He said the agency is badly needed to replace the UN’s existing "weak women’s machinery."
Lewis added:
"A destructive pattern has taken hold of landmark agreements on women’s rights: gender equality advocates work tirelessly to gain international consensus, only to see their hard-won declarations and resolutions reach dead ends for lack of expertise and operational capacity at country level.
"The women’s organizations and advocates who have pressed the case for a UN women’s agency know that targeted programs and experts will be needed in every country to end that pattern forever.
"We have great hopes for what the new women’s agency can accomplish through targeted programs in developing countries.
"At long last, the UN is poised to act on behalf of more than 17 million women living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and the additional 225 young women between 15 and 24 who will become infected every hour today. It can now begin to reverse injustices that have forever been tolerated: the fact that one in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime; that women produce most of the world’s food but own just one per cent of its deeded land; and that they make up the majority of the poor and illiterate.
"Finally, the new agency for women will need a leader with vision, expertise, authority, empathy and devotion unparalleled in the history of multilateralism. Let the global and transparent selection process begin." NUPGE
More information:
Lewis calls for new UN agency devoted to women's issues
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