WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

Last week the United Nations made a decision that many of us thought impossible --- after three years of discussion the General Assembly agreed unanimously to consolidate four organizations into a single entity focused on promoting the rights and well-being of women world-wide and achieving gender equality. The decision merges the programs of four organizations --- the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women --- under the leadership of an under-secretary general.

The decision is remarkable for several reasons. First, the UN is as fragmented as any large institution in the world, and its turf battles are legendary. While the merged institutions are not equal in terms of clout --- with UNIFEM being historically the most visible --- getting any agency or program to give up its individual identity is a significant achievement, which will help programs streamline and become more visible and coherent. Second, establishing a new under-secretary general post focusing on gender is surprisingly bold, considering that debates over the nature of women’s rights and how to realize them constantly rock the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the boards of UN institutions.

For now it is unclear what this will mean for Refugees International and our concerns for the protection of women in the context of conflict and large-scale displacement. The merged entities focus primarily on long-term development and this is unlikely to change. But having an under-secretary general for women’s rights and well-being will give RI and like-minded non-governmental organizations around the world a focal point to push for more effective UN agency response on our core issues: assuring that women have access to essential services, including reproductive health, in refugee camps and host communities; reducing gender-based violence in conflict situations; getting more resources to displaced women as they return to their home communities; and having trained gender advisors as integral parts of the UN country teams in emergencies.

We see the under-secretary general post as a new global leader who can push the whole UN system to respond more effectively to women’s needs.

The merger also begs the question of whether a similar process might be appropriate in the area of humanitarian response. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN World Food Program, UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration, and the UN Development Program to varying degrees have mandates that touch on the issue of responding to large-scale emergencies, which almost always involve displacement. Some UN reform advocates have called for the creation of a single UN humanitarian entity that would incorporate the disparate response programs of these and other agencies.

Refugees International has never taken a position on this matter, partially because it has always seemed to be something that could never happen in the real world. But the creation of a single organization focused on women in the name of improving system-wide coherence suggests that radical restructuring proposals may no longer be so far-fetched, and challenges us to think creatively about the future structure of the UN humanitarian response system.