UN80 - Gender equality will be a victim of UN cost cutting

As the UN publishes major reform plans, our founder and CEO that a potential merger of UN Women with UNFPA shows that women's rights are not a diplomatic priority.

As the United Nations prepares to mark its 80th birthday, it has published extensive proposals to deal with the deep funding crisis in which it currently finds itself. Facing massive budget cuts and with the threats of more to come, the UN80 scheme has the potential to completely redraw the global machinery of practical diplomacy.

One of the key proposals is the merger of UN Women - the agency focused on gender equality - with UNFPA, the global body concerned with sexual and reproductive health.

Given the significance of sexual and reproductive health and rights to global women's movements - UNFPA works on many issues that are central to women's activism, such as ending harmful practices like child marriage and female genital mutilation, and increasing access to healthcare - a merger between these two bodies has long been discussed.

However, any attempt to water down the role of UN Women would be a reform opposed by many activists across the world.

Compared to UNFPA, which dates back to 1969, UN Women is a relatively new part of the multilateral system. It was created 20 years ago, bringing together various parts of the UN concerned with the promotion of women's rights into one executive organization. What makes the merger proposals personal to many activists was that the creation of UN Women was the culmination of many years of advocacy from women.

Our demand was that the UN finally put its money where its mouth is on gender equality. The establishment of a dedicated agency for women was one of the most important successes for global women's activism in the years after the Beijing conference.