In a small room towards the back of Jesus’ second quad, Kathy Peach, Head of External Affairs at the international development charity VSO, is giving a talk on the UN’s newest agency UN Women. She pauses. She apologises. “Sorry,” she says, “I keep on saying ‘basically’, and I’m not sure why.”
Perhaps because what she is talking about is very basic. Or at least, it ought to be. Women make up 49.5% of the world’s population, and one may reasonably hope that this equality is reflected in statistics in other fields. Well, women make up 18.4% of parliamentarians globally. Women signing peace treaties stack up at a measly 2.4%. Luckily this disparity is rectified by other figures, such as women making up 70% of the world’s poor, or doing 66% of the world’s work while earning 10% of its income. Swings and roundabouts, maybe gender inequality isn’t such a problem after all.
Founded earlier this year, UN Women is the latest in a line of UN agencies designed to bring about gender equality, and Kathy Peach is one of the leading lobbyists in the UK trying to make sure it receives the support it needs. She outlines some of its priorities, saying UN Women “will particularly address areas that have been neglected by the UN system previously, so issues around violence against women, women’s ability to earn and income, and women’s ability to have a say in decisions that affect their lives and their involvement in local and national politics.”
However, the UN has traditionally been poor at tackling gender inequality. Heard of UNICEF? Probably. Heard of UNIFEM? Perhaps less likely. They certainly never featured on the kit of the best football team in Europe. Peach explains that “the way the UN previously dealt with Women’s issues was fragmented, under-resourced and didn’t really deliver for women on the ground.” She continues, “We’re asking for the UK government to make a core funding contribution £21 million annually, which is the same amount of money as they gave previously to UNICEF… we believe that the UK government should give as much support to women as they do to children.”
Of course, things aren’t as simple as that, they never are. Especially in the current political and economic climate, where funding for obscure UN agencies doesn’t have huge political capital attached to it. But, given how the news these days is all about Ken Clarke’s idea of “serious” rape, international “slutwalks” and how “sexual attacks on women are being used as a weapon in the Libyan conflict”, it is also a climate where clearly gender issues are increasingly high on the agenda.
Despite its clear relevance to problems close to home, finding political support for its funding is still a challenge. Cameron has come under fire from his own party for his plans to increase aid funding, with critics such as Liam Fox, the defence secretary, (unsurprisingly) among the “aid sceptics”. However, while there has been some political resolve from the government in terms of protecting aid, the signals from the Department for International Development suggest that funding for UN Women will be determined by “results”, suggesting a somewhat reduced enthusiasm for the venture then when it was first being campaigned for by the UK under Labour.
However, Peach feels that increased aid spending is easily justified. “From VSO’s perspective, we don’t believe that the current economic situation should be an excuse for forgetting about the world’s poor. For many of the people that we support, aid money is the difference between life and death.” She also puts the financial demands of UN Women into perspective. “In terms of the financial contribution, what we’re asking is just 0.2% of the overall overseas aid budget. We think that will deliver real value for money, both for the government’s aid agenda and driving broader change across the whole of the international community.”
The issue of funding becomes starker when Peach outlines UN Women’s current financial situation. “UN Women is suffering from a massive funding shortfall at the moment. So far only $69 million of new money has been pledged to it this year, and only $33 million dollars of that has been received by UN Women. And that’s against a target set by Ban Ki-moon and the UN member states of $500 million… We’re concerned that if the UK doesn’t stand up and make a substantial funding contribution urgently, then UN Women is going to fail before it’s even got off the ground.” If the UK, who supported the founding of UN Women from the outset, fails to provide financial support for the agency, then the prospects of other member states coming through with the money UN Women needs in its critical early stages is slim. “We hope that by making a funding commitment themselves, the UK will put pressure on other member states within the UN to up their contributions themselves.”
And investing in UN Women makes sense, because investing in women generally makes sense. One hopes that nowadays people can see the intrinsic value of gender equality, but in case they can’t, Michelle Bachelet, Head of UN Women and described as a “walking almanac of gender statistics” by the Guardian, will have a suitable economic or political stat for almost any gender query. Did you know that women in poorer communities spend 90% of their income on their families, compared to men, who will spend 40%? Or costs the Australian government $A13.6 billion in medical care, childcare and lost productivity, which is $A3.6bn more than the fiscal stimulus they pumped into the economy last year? While instrumental reasoning when it comes to gender inequality can be controversial, Peach is supportive of it. “What we mustn’t forget is that women’s rights and women’s equality have a value in their own right, so they they are a goal and an end in themselves. But, increasingly, it is being recognised is that actually by achieving women’s rights and equality, it brings economic and social benefits that will help not just women but also their families and communities and also their countries and economies as a whole.” And if such reasoning lends the issue political salience, then surely it is to be welcomed.
Peach also emphasises the personal role of Michelle Bachelet, and claims that she will be central to any success the agency might achieve. “Bachelet is absolutely critical. She has had a very strong record as President of Chile, she is an incredibly committed woman, she is a strong and decisive leader and exactly the person that UN Women needs as this early stage in its life. She instilled a lot of confidence and I think that’s another reason why the UK government shouldn’t hesitate in making a large funding contribution to UN Women, as it has a clearly strong and capable leader in Michelle Bachelet.”
When Ban Ki-moon came to Oxford last term, I, feigning friendship with a reporter from Reuters, got my way into the champagne reception afterwards. While others posed for photos and congratulated him on his speech, I took my 15 seconds of fame to ask him about whether he thought UN Women would be fully funded. He reassuringly looked me in the eye. “No problem,” he told me. Being the world’s most consensual politician, it is perhaps his job to reassure me. This summer, when UN Women publishes its targets and Andrew Mitchell with the rest of DFID reveal how much the UK will contribute to the agency, will perhaps reveal a more telling answer to the extent of a problem that UN Women faces. For the idea of UN Women may seem basic to many of us, Kathy Peach and Mr Ban alike. We can only hope that its implementation is just as simple.
