UN Women is the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. It was established in 2010 to accelerate progress in meeting the needs of women and girls worldwide by consolidating the mandates of four previously distinct UN bodies.
Its core mission is to advance women’s rights, gender equality, and the empowerment of all women and girls globally.
Key Roles and Focus Areas
UN Women operates with a unique triple mandate:
- Normative Support: Helping UN Member States set global standards, laws, and policies for achieving gender equality.
- UN System Coordination: Leading and coordinating the UN system’s work on gender equality and promoting accountability for commitments.
- Operational Activities: Working with governments and civil society to implement effective programmes and services on the ground that benefit women and girls.
The organization focuses its efforts across several strategic priority areas:
- Women’s Leadership and Political Participation: Ensuring women have an equal voice and representation in decision-making.
- Economic Empowerment: Promoting women’s income security, decent work, and economic autonomy.
- Ending Violence Against Women and Girls: Working to eliminate all forms of violence, including technology-facilitated violence.
- Women, Peace and Security, and Humanitarian Action: Supporting women’s role in peace processes, security efforts, and humanitarian response.
By addressing these core issues, UN Women is dedicated to ensuring the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—particularly SDG 5 on gender equality—is realized for every woman and girl.
Historical perspective
For many years, the United Nations faced serious challenges in its efforts to promote gender equality globally, including inadequate funding and no single recognized driver to direct UN activities on gender equality issues. In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to address such challenges. In doing so, UN Member States took an historic step in accelerating the Organization’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system, which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment:
- Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW)
- International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW)
- Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI)
- United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
Source: https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/about-un-women and AI generated contents
