Executive Director of UN Women: “Poverty has a female face”
The Executive Director of the new UN Women organisation, Michelle Bachelet wants to enhance the effectiveness of UN equality work. During her visit to Finland, she highlighted that, in addition to being right, improving the status of women is also clever.
A place is set for the little sister in the children’s table, while adults address weighty issues in their own dinner table. Unifem used to be a little like la hermana menor, the little sister, the Executive Director of UN Women, the new UN gender equality organisation, Michelle Bachelet describes.
UN Women began its operation at the beginning of this year, when four former UN gender equality operators were merged into this one organisation. Ms. Michelle Bachelet, who acted as President of Chile in 2006–2010 and before that as her country’s Minister of Defence and Minister of Health, was selected to lead the gender equality organisation out of 26 applicants.
Equality is a theme that most people support but only a few remember to regard as a priority, Bachelet estimates. In a situation with many gender equality operators, even in the UN system, the improvement of the status of women and gender issues were given a relatively low political importance, which showed for instance in the resources available for such activities. This, on the other hand, was reflected on the achievements as well.
Establishment of a new organisation, appointment of its executive director as Under-Secretary-General, and selection of Michelle Bachelet as the first holder of that task all underline the will to enhance the effectiveness of equality work of the UN system.
Executive Director Bachelet visited Finland this week.
New partnerships and cooperation models
According to Michelle Bachelet, important words with a view to promotion of equality include the often heard mainstreaming and overarching. However, results cannot be achieved simply by repeating these over and over again.
“Mainstreaming is essential. At a country-level, for example, promotion of equality cannot remain the minister of equality affairs’ business alone, since, politically and in terms of resources, he or she is usually in the weakest position among ministers. Global guidelines are not enough, but concrete political decisions concerning all ministries are needed, as well as good, concrete money.”
Bachelet does not think that it is her place to advice Finland, for instance in the preparation of the forthcoming Development Policy Action Plan, as Finland already has plenty of national experience and evidence of the promotion of equality.
“However, a new government always has an excellent opportunity to review what has been done before and in which respects this activity has been successful. One can learn from one’s own experience and from that of others.”
As the leader of UN Women, Bachelet wants to use creativity in the search of new partnerships and cooperation models by which to enhance the effectiveness of the work. For example, in South-South cooperation, a lot of opportunities still remain unexplored.
War ends but violence remains
It is also essential to assess where the need for the organisation is the greatest today.
“The Least Developed Countries are naturally important because their poverty rate is the highest, and poverty has a female face. But in addition to the LDCs, attention should be paid to Middle-Income Countries, where the number of poor people can be even much higher.”
In general, the focus of UN Women is on countries where the status of women is weak in one way or another. They include countries living in a conflict or in a post-conflict situation.
“In many cases, the war ends, but violence against women remains. But even in conflict situations, it would be beneficial to regard women besides as victims, also as actors for change.”
In addition to being right, the improvement of the economic opportunities and political involvement of women is also clever, Bachelet underscores. This would benefit not only women, but also the national economy and society as a whole.
During her visit to Finland, Bachelet met the President of the Republic Tarja Halonen, and the following Government members: Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, Minister of Finance Jutta Urpilainen, Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala and Minister responsible for gender equality affairs Paavo Arhinmäki.
Finland is an important donor for UN Women; during 2011, Finland’s contribution to UN Women activities will amount to three million euros. The level of contribution has tripled compared to the support formerly channelled for UN equality work through Unifem.
Erja-Outi Heino