Monday, 14 September, 2009
So far, despite all efforts of global women’s movement and commitments made by different international agencies including UN, progress made in achieving equality for women is very limited, uneven and selective. In this context, for last few years global women’s movement, CSOs, concerned UN bodies put together many efforts to have a single entity in the UN for making UN interventions effective to achieve the goal of equality among the sexes.

We are highly disappointed and outraged that the proposal to create a single entity has been turned down by a group of member-countries. Undoubtedly, turning down of this proposal from this round of GA meeting will subvert the cause of women’s advancement globally. We urge everybody, including the countries opposing the initiative to create a single entity, to take another fresh and concerted initiative for the creation of this unified entity at UN. We strongly believe creation of this single entity under the stewardship of Under-secretary General will generate fresh energy to the advancement of women globally. This entity is much needed and thus its creation should be accelerated without any further delay. Women around the world can’t afford to wait until another GA Meeting!

On behalf of SAAPE

Rokeya Kabir
Regional Coordinator, Gender Thematic Group
South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)