G8: UN women's agency must be fit for purpose

25/06/2010 11:14:00

In a letter to David Cameron, VSO UK's Policy and Advocacy Manager, Kathy Peach sets out frustrations with negotiations for a dedicated UN women's agency.  Read her letter:

Dear Prime Minister,

UK leadership at the G8 to create an effective UN agency for women.

As organisations committed to gender equality and women’s rights, we are writing to you ahead of the G8 to request your leadership on the creation of a new UN agency for women.

We believe a new women’s agency has the potential to make a lasting difference to the lives of millions around the world by helping women give birth safely, stay in school longer, live free from violence, and earn an income.

With just five years until the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, a new women’s agency is desperately needed to overcome the entrenched apathy among many governments and UN agencies to making progress on women’s equality.

A new women’s agency will reduce the incoherence, fragmentation, and lack of leadership on women that currently characterises the UN system.  Greater efforts to empower women and improve their status will drive reductions in maternal mortality, improve women’s sexual and reproductive health, and help advance many other key development goals.

Critical negotiations on the women’s agency are currently taking place in New York and we expect them to culminate during the G8 summit. At present, we are pessimistic about the chance of a resolution being agreed that will enable the new women’s agency to meet the enormous, and vital, role ahead. We are concerned that the new agency will be relegated to providing only an advisory or coordinating function, with insufficient resources and authority to address the inadequacies of the current UN system.

We therefore ask you to use your influence with the G8 and other UN member states to press for an ambitious agenda for the agency, and to express your unequivocal support for a resolution that provides a new women’s agency with the following:

· Sufficient resources and mandate to deliver development programmes that will make a genuine difference to women’s lives
· The ability to establish operations based on the needs of women and not solely at the invitation of member states 
· The authority to hold other UN agencies accountable for improving progress towards gender equality goals  
· Strong mechanisms for the participation of women’s and civil society organisations

We are troubled by the lack of consensus on the executive board, and ask you to use your leadership to help member states reach a fair compromise on this element of the negotiations.

This is a momentous opportunity to change the course of women’s lives globally, at a time when they bear the brunt of disease and poverty.

We hope we can count on your support on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Kathy Peach
VSO's Policy and Adcovacy Manager and Chair, UK Gender and Development Network Working Group on the UN Women’s Agency 

Jessica Woodroffe
Chair, UK Gender and Development Network

VSO has since had confirmation that the Prime Minister is willing to raise this at the G8.

Sarah Boseley, The Guardian's Health Editor, profiled the story on her regular Global Health Blog. Read it here