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In 2006, the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on System-Wide Coherence was tasked to study the reform of the United Nations System. Civil society advocates pushed that GEAR be part of UN reform. The GEAR Campaign is a global initiative of women’s human rights and social justice groups that proposes the creation of a stronger UN entity for women in order to significantly advance gender equality, the empowerment of women and women’s human rights in the work of the UN.
Among its recommendations are that this new gender architecture must have: (1) Combined strong normative (OSAGI and DAW) and operational (UNIFEM, INSTRAW) functions; (2) Expanded and stronger operational activities at the national level; (3) Leadership by an Under Secretary General; (4) Ambitious amount of funding, and (5) Accountability at national and international levels with meaningful involvement of civil society. The primary objective of the campaign is to convince national governments to support these civil society’s / women’s groups’ proposed initiatives in the deliberations of the UN General Assembly.
The GEAR Campaign has five (5) global focal points: Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
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