2 July 2010 – In a bid to accelerate the empowerment of women, the General Assembly today voted unanimously to create a dynamic new entity merging four United Nations offices focusing on gender equality, a move hailed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior officials.
“The newest member of the UN family has been born today,” Mr. Ban told the Assembly after it passed the resolution setting up the new UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to be known as UN Women.
“This is truly a watershed day,” he declared.
In more ways than one. The creation of a dedicated agency with the resources of the UN is not an achievement to be taken lightly. In fact, the very aspect of getting the 192 members of the United Nations to vote unanimously on anything is wildly impressive.
The creation of the UN Women agency will, no doubt, be covered in great detail here on Th!nk About It, and that discussion will overshadow the details of the negotiation process. So I'd like to take a second and draw your attention to two less visible, but quite important aspects of this event.
First, UN Women is only one part of a greater package of measures, passed in that unanimous decision, aimed squarely at increasing the efficiency of development aid. This is the result of four years of work by the High-level Panel on UN System-Wide Coherence. The final resolution that was passed on Friday contains significant and broad reforms of the entire UN development aid framework.
And second: look at who led the negotiations and made this historic move happen.
On 25 November 2009, the President of the General Assembly appointed Her Excellency Mrs. Tiina Intelmann, Permanent Representative of Estonia, and His Excellency Mr. Ghazi Jomaa, Permanent Representative of Tunisia, as Co-Facilitators to continue the consultative process on the System-wide Coherence
Things like this should not be overlooked or dismissed. A reform of tremendous significance was brought about, not by America, Europe, or China; but by the UN ambassadors of Tunisia and Estonia.
We may not have the budget or the manpower to contribute to the developing world in any massive way - but here's a contribution we can indeed make. We can send our best people to do significant, but unglamorous jobs. We can make sure that we are there, when major nations overlook important efforts because they will not bring political capital. We can make sure that sometimes - not often, but occasionally - we can be truly proud of our country and our people. Today, when no Mr. Sarkozy, or Mrs. Merkel, or Mrs. Clinton is as important a person for women in the developing world as Mrs. Intelmann, is just such a day.
"I believe that we have achived the best possible outcome," said Estonian ambassador to the UN Tiina Intelmann. "Negotiations between 192 parties are always very complex, but fortunately all member states were in agreement that we will need to make tremendous efforts in the next five years to achieve the Millenium Development Goals."
Ireland is a teeny, tiny country but we rank 6th in overseas development aid on a per capita basis. We should be prouder of that.
This is good news. Kudos to the empowerment of women.
INteresting. I think that both Estonia an Tunisia might very often understand the issues at stake a lot better than western european countries.
I’ve really appreciated your interesting point. Good news indeed. Also, I kind of agree with Daniel, definitely.
I kind of agree with Daniel, with the exception that Estonia doesn’t like to think of itself as juxtaposed to Western Europe.
OK, you can call us Nordic if you like…
Food for thought:
Is it not that the new ‘UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women’ was a clear cut deal before negotiations started?
We are dealing with politics here and if the creation of this new body would have been a hot issue, one can wonder if the two small(er) states would have received this task.
Rightly so, it was generally decided that women should get a stronger voice. So was the ‘ball in front of the goal not merely a matter of kicking it in’?
Anyway, it is the result that counts.
Johan - it’s possible. But do you have any reason to think this is the case, other than your opinion that only representatives of major nations could actually manage to get things done?
@Andrei,
What I am trying to say is NOT that only leaders of bigger countries can get things done. But what I am saying is that when people are chosen to do a job, the political powers know very well who to choose. When success upfront is clear, you might as well choose smaller countries and put those in the spotlight of success. That is how politics work in my opinion.
Good news, thanks for sharing it!