Andrew Mitchell, UK Secretary of State for International Development, has announced that the UK will provide £10 million a year to UN Women for the next two years, making the UK the second largest donor to the agency after Spain. Announcing the pledge, Andrew Mitchell challenged UN Women to ""now demonstrate that it can deliver results where it matters most"". Responding to the announcement, Michelle Bachelet, the head of UN Women, praised the UK as being ""a true champion of gender equality, and a continuous supporter of UN Women"".
UNA-UK Campaign for UN Women
In May and June we asked our supporters to urge the UK government to prioritise funding for UN Women and support this new UN agency's vital work.
Thank you for the excellent response, and to all those who took action for UN Women via our website. We are now able to inform you that the Department for International Development (DFID) has announced a funding commitment of £10m a year for two years. Is that sufficient?
UNA-UK welcomes this multi-year contribution to the work of the agency as a demonstration of the UK's commitment to the vital role of women in international development. UN Women is, however, still facing a substantial funding shortfall. Six months into its operation, it has received little more than a fifth of the $500 million budget agreed by the UN General Assembly last year. For this reason, UNA-UK had hoped that the UK would be able to commit at least 0.2% of its aid budget to this essential work.
In a joint statement, VSO, the Women's Institute and 21 other UK charities called the pledge a "failure of ambition". Marg Mayne, head of VSO, said:
"When UN Women was created we believed that donors finally would start matching their words with resources. Alas, we have seen a race to the bottom with donors competing by how little they can give. Germany's $1 million and the United States' $6 million deserve particular mention ... Andrew Mitchell has constantly said that [the UK] would lead international action to improve the lives of women and girls, yet only £10 million has been pledged to UN Women, an organisation specifically set up to do just this, while £888 million has been given to the World Bank this year - an organisation that by the [UK's] own assessment scored 'poorly' on its performance towards delivering gender equality."
UN Women is the UN body dedicated to the empowerment of women and gender equality. Its key focus areas are violence against women; peace and security; leadership and participation; national planning and budgeting; economic empowerment; and the Millennium Development Goals.
UNA-UK has been campaigning for the UK to demonstrate strong political leadership by committing significant resources to the new agency, in line with its stated strategy of empowering women and girls in key developing countries. UNA-UK will continue to monitor UK support for UN Women as the agency starts its essential programme of work.
