Executive Board to look at UN Women’s work with men and boys
Date:
New York — UN Women Executive Board will meet on 9 February for its first regular session of 2015. The meeting comes at an historic moment, when gender equality, women’s human rights and women’s empowerment are high on the international development agenda, and coincides with major intergovernmental processes.
This year marks the 20-year anniversary and review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+20), the 15-year review of Security Council resolution 1325 on women peace and security, the negotiations on financing for development, as well as the adoption of a post-2015 development framework and of universally agreed Sustainable Development Goals. An engaged and committed Executive Board is crucial to ensure that gender equality and women rights are strengthened in the post-2015 agenda.
Member States will explore UN Women’s strategy around working with men and boys, examples of country-level work, and efforts to promote women’s rights and gender equality by engaging men. A briefing on the HeForShe campaign will be a highlight of the session, and will focus on portraying men and boys as advocates and stakeholders in breaking the silence, raising their voices and taking action for the achievement of gender equality.
Lunchtime briefings will touch on UN Women’s work responding to the Ebola humanitarian crisis, focusing on the entity’s work with the UN system, governments and civil society to integrate gender sensitivity into Ebola response programming and policies.
The Executive Board will discuss and evaluate the assessment of the Report of the UN Women Evaluation Function, the organization’s strengths, areas to be reinforced and recommendations.
They will also resume discussions on funding the Strategic Plan 2014-2017, an essential matter for UN Women to fully implement its mandate and to ensure its success in bringing meaningful and sustainable improvements to the lives of women and girls on the ground.