UN Secretary General: “It is time to act on gender”

From the European Campaign for the Gender Equality Architecture Reform at the UN website: GEAR

June 2009, New York United Nations Member States met on Monday 22th June to take stock on the discussion on the three aspects of System-wide Coherence (Gender, Funding, Governance) and to identify ways forward. In his address to the plenary the Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon urged, among other things, the Member States to create the UN composite gender entity by the end of the current General Assembly, as well as to allocate the funding necessary for its establishment.

The stock-taking debate made clear that the discussions on gender are at a much more advanced stage than the discussions on funding and governance. The Secretary General, the Co-chairs, and many Member States emphasised, that the gender equality architecture reform should be taken forward although more work is needed on the other two aspects of the reform. However, the G-77 and China repeated their wish for an “integrated approach” on all the three issues and rejected “artificial deadlines”.

As for the next steps, many Member States were calling for a resolution on all the main aspects of the System-wide Coherence by September. The Co-Chairs of the General Assembly will continue to meet with regional groups and individual delegations to build consensus, and a plenary meeting with Member States will follow in early September.

Written by: Federica Lomiri

Filed Under: Gender

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Socio-economic analyst for developing countries. Membership Officer in SID.

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