United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women)

What is UN Women?

UN Women is the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. UN Women support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms; help Member States to implement this standards and stands ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society; and hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress.

UN Women was created in July 2010 by the United Nations General Assembly. 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)

The main roles of UN Women are:

To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms.
To help Member States to implement these standards, standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society.
To hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress.

Several international agreements guide the work of UN Women:

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The “women’s bill of rights” is a cornerstone of all UN Women programmes. More than 170 countries are parties to the Convention.
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (PFA). Adopted by governments at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, this document sets forth governments’ commitments to enhance women’s rights. Member states reaffirmed and strengthened the platform in 2000 during the global five-year review of progress, and pledged to accelerate its implementation during the10-year review in 2005.
UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000) recognized that war impacts women differently, and reaffirmed the need to increase women’s role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution. The UN Security Council subsequently adopted four additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009) and 1960 (2010). Taken together, the five resolutions represent a critical framework for improving the situation of women in conflict-affected countries.
Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals were embraced by all UN Member States and outline a set of time-bound and measurable goals and targets to promote gender equality and to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy and environmental degradation by 2015.

UN Women will be a dynamic and strong champion for women and girls, providing them with a powerful voice at the global, regional and local levels. Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the UN Charter, UN Women, among other issues, works for the:

elimination of discrimination against women and girls;
empowerment of women; and
achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

UN Women presence in the world

Headquartered at the United Nations in New York, UN Women promotes women’s empowerment, rights and gender equality globally, as well as within and among individual countries through a network of sub-regional, country and liaison offices.

For more information, see:

What does UN Women Brussels Liaison Office do?

In 2008, UNIFEM established a Liaison Office in Brussels, now UN Women Liaison Office, with the objective of building and strengthening cooperation and partnerships for advancing women’s rights and achieving gender equality with the European Union and other Brussels based institutions, as well as to contribute to the strengthening of gender equality in EU external development policies in line with international commitments to women’s empowerment and human rights. The office also engages in outreach, information, advocacy, representation and policy dialogue with the governments and other partners in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

UN Women website

www.unwomen.org

UN Women in Social Media

http://twitter.com/UNIFEM

http://www.facebook.com/unwomen

http://www.youtube.com/unwomen

http://www.unwomen.org/feed/

Contact information

For further information please contact:

UN Women Brussels Liaison Office
Rue Montoyer, 14
1000 Brussels
Tel : +32 2 213 14 44
Fax : +32 2 213 14 49
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it