REPORT OF THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE UN Gender Equality Architecture Reform

REPORT OF THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE UN Gender Equality Architecture Reform--Adoption of the draft resolution on SWC- System Wide Coherence Resolution by the UN General Assembly September 14, 2009Women 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.

The Campaign is happy to report that the General Assembly, due to strong, unanimous support adopted a resolution this past Monday (9/14/09) that will enable the creation of a new gender equality entity. This resolution will help to move forward the Gender architecture reform process giving the Secretary General the power to appoint a Under-Secretary General to specifically lead the new gender equality entity.

The campaign then moves to issue calls and challenges to the UN and to the member states as it follows: 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. 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. 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.

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 state of the process at global, regional, national, and local levels including in the governing board 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). This is an important and crucial step forward - now it must be made operational without further delay.The campaign congratulates all who have worked in this process. And it calls on its members to continue to give input/participation for it is now more critical than ever For more info contact the facilitators of the campaign Centro CWGL, Center for Women’s Global Leadership 1‐732‐932‐8782, and Women’s Environment and Development Organization, WEDO 1‐212‐973‐0325.

Prepared by Marta Benavides—SIGLO XXIII—El Salvador from varios reports on GEAR