UN budgeting bypasses women

When the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) holds a two-week session beginning next Monday, one of the lingering issues high on the agenda will be the continued under-funding of women's activities at the United Nations. The primary theme of the two-week CSW session -- Feb. 25 through March 7 -- is "financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women." "We believe it is impossible to discuss financing for gender equality without discussing the structural mechanisms including within the United Nations system to deliver needed resources to improve women's lives on the ground," said June Zeitlin, executive director of the New York-based Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). "Without a stronger, consolidated women's entity led by an Under-Secretary- General (USG) and ambitiously funded, the type of structural change that women's groups have advocated for over the last two years, and the efforts made by governments and international development agencies, will fall short," Zeitlin told IPS. The entire 2006 budget of the only operational women's entity -- the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) -- was only 57 million dollars, about 2.0 percent of the 2.34 billion budget of the UN children's agency (UNICEF) for the same period, says the Philadelphia-based Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). The combined budgets of all of the UN women's entities -- including the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI) and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) -- totalled only about 65 million dollars in 2006, according to the WILPF. "This is 0.005 percent of the world's military expenditure of 1.2 trillion dollars in 2006," says the League, in its written submission to the CSW. In 2007, however, the UNIFEM budget was doubled, to reach about 115 million dollars. But its level of funding remained far behind most UN bodies and agencies. The WILPF also finds it "unacceptable that despite many commitments to gender equality and women's empowerment, the figures tell a different story." A proposal for a new UN women's agency -- to be headed by a USG -- has remained in limbo, despite support from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The proposal can be a reality only when it is eventually approved by the 192- member General Assembly. But member states have been dragging their feet -- either for political or financial reasons. Jessica Neuwirth, president of Equality Now, an international human rights organization, says funding for women, and particularly for women's rights advocacy, "is disproportionately low to the extreme." Both in the NGO (non-governmental organization) sector and in the UN itself funding for women is exponentially lower than for other issues, she added. Think of UNICEF for example, with a budget in the hundreds of millions, while UNIFEM has a budget in the tens of millions, she noted. "It has long been recognized that investing in women brings high returns in development, peace, etc. Yet no one is really investing in women. It is time to match the rhetoric with funding," Neuwirth told IPS. Zeitlin said the secretary-general's report to the CSW says that tracking of resources allocated to gender equality and women's empowerment within the UN system is difficult, including at the country and regional level. Ban's report also notes that recent discussions on reform of the institutional arrangements for gender equality in the UN have revealed serious under- resourcing of the gender specific bodies. "This is an understatement," said Zeitlin, particularly when the UNIFEM budget is compared to budgets of other UN agencies, including the 3.5 billion dollars available to the UN Development Program (UNDP). "You don't have to be a mathematical genius to figure out that the amount of money dedicated to UN entities specifically mandated to advance gender equality and women's empowerment is merely a 'rounding error'!" she told IPS. Speaking last month at a seminar on 'Women at the Table: Financing Gender Equality,' Marina Fe B. Durano of UNIFEM said that gender as a cross-cutting issue should cease to be conceptual or even ephemeral and take women closer to realities. "We need to connect women's demands with policies, programs and implementation mechanisms in order to make this happen," Durano said. There is little value in being at the (negotiating) table when the external environment governed by global institutions limit the policy options available to women, Durano explained. She pointed out that many of the policies covered by financing for development are found in great detail in trade agreements negotiated in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other regional trade agreements; in loan agreements negotiated with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); and in aid instruments of bilateral development cooperation agencies. "These come in the form of conditionalities that our respective governments have questioned. Even gender equality has become hostage to this conditionality mindset," Durano added. She said that global economic governance must be such that "our collective freedom for political expression is guaranteed." "What does it mean to be at the table when external agencies have decided on our behalf what is good for us and what is not?" she asked.