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RESOLUTION 1325
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NGO
Concluding Statement on CSW49/Beijing +10
NGO Linkage Caucus, New York, 9 March 2005
The Linkage Caucus represents a diverse group of NGOs from all regions
of the world gathered at the 49th Session of the Commission on the
Status of Women.
As long-standing supporters of and advocates for the United Nations
and the multilateral system, we believe that the UN Member States
and the UN leadership need to take strong action to advance gender
equality within the UN system and to make the promotion and realization
of women's empowerment and human rights a priority.
Based on the discussion at this 49th Session of the CSW reviewing
implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, we note that the
UN system needs both more effective, results-driven gender mainstreaming,
and effective, adequately resourced women's units to bring us closer
to implementing the Beijing Platform, to achieving the Millennium
Development Goals, to ending the pandemic of violence against women,
and to reflecting the UN's unequivocal commitment to the world's women
in all their diversity.
In this regard, we would like to emphasize the need to upgrade and
better resource the gender architecture and its related mechanisms
within the UN. The UN system must elevate gender equality to its appropriate
place within its own organizational chart. The status of the personnel
and funding of the units that work on women's issues within the UN
should reflect the high priority that the system says it places on
gender equality. Women's participation and equality is essential to
meeting the Millennium Development Goals, as well as to fulfilling
the myriad other commitments the UN has made to combating gender inequality
and discrimination.
Over the past two decades, Member states have steadily expanded the
mandates and expectations that they put on UNIFEM and the Division
for the Advancement of Women in particular. Furthermore, the status
of the personnel charged with the advancement of women must be raised
to the level of others dealing with equivalent concerns.
In additions, it is urgent that the low percentage of women in high
level posts within the UN be addressed. There is currently no Under
Secretary-General dedicated to and only one Assistant Secretary-General
working on gender issues. Thirty years after the first International
Women's Year Conference, it is shocking that only a handful of approximately
sixty Secretary Generals Special Representatives (SRSGs) and Deputy
Special Representatives are women. This and the lack of progress in
appointing women heads of agencies underscores the problems with implementation
if gender equality policies within the UN system.
The UN should be setting an example for gender balance and assisting
Member States in achieving the BPFA goal of at least 30% women in
decision-making positions˜a goal which is far from being realized
one decade later. Furthermore, we note with concern that there are
only 11 women ambassadors at the UN and that Member States have been
slow to put forward women candidates for SRSGs and heads of UN agencies.
A clear commitment on the part of Member States to nominate and the
SG to appoint more women to leadership positions would show strong
commitment in
the area of gender equality.
We hope that in the context of UN reform Member States and the UN
leadership will propose and implement structural changes that would
have a real impact on the work of the United Nations on gender equality
as well as serve as a model for Member States.
The time to act is now.
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