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Backgrounder: Basic facts about UN Women

Xinhua, September 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

China and UN Women will co-host a high-level global leaders' meeting on gender equality and women's empowerment at UN headquarters on Sunday, which will be chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Here are some basic facts about UN Women, the UN body focusing on gender equality and women's empowerment.

UN Women, or the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, was established in July 2010 by the UN General Assembly to accelerate the world organization's goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

The mandate and functions of UN Women consist of the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, the Division for the Advancement of Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, according to General Assembly resolution 64/289, which was adopted in July 2010.

In addition, the entity must lead, coordinate and promote the accountability of the UN system in its work on gender equality and women's empowerment. Its role is to enhance, instead of replacing, the efforts by other parts of the UN system.

The organization is governed by a multi-tiered intergovernmental governance structure in charge of providing normative and operational policy guidance.

The UN General Assembly, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a functional commission of ECOSOC, constitute the governance structure that sets forth the normative policy guiding principles of the entity.

The main roles of UN Women include supporting inter-governmental bodies, such as the CSW, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms, helping member states to implement these standards, providing support, forging partnerships with civil society, and leading and coordinating the UN system's work on gender equality, as well as promoting accountability.

Former Deputy President of South Africa Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka served as the current executive director of UN Women, who took office in August 2013. The incumbent Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, used to be the inaugural executive director of the entity.

The head of UN Women shall be appointed by the UN secretary-general, in consultation with member states, for a term of four years, with the possibility of renewal for one term, according to the resolution.

To achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls is also one of the 17 new goals on the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to be adopted at the Sustainable Development Summit From Friday to Sunday at the UN Headquarters in New York.

"We are very pleased with Goal five, which deals with key barriers to gender equality and women's empowerment and points us to the action required," said Mlambo-Ngcuka at a meeting of the UN Women Executive Board on Sept. 15.

"Clearly to achieve Agenda 2030, we must achieve substantive, transformative and irreversible gender equality and women's empowerment. This means making choices that focus on universal, strategic, bold structural changes -- changes that must also be rights-based," said the UN Women head. Endi