BACKGROUND GUIDE FOR UN WOMEN

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE BOARD

Dear delegates,
It gives us immense pleasure and honour to welcome you all to the committee of
United Women at DAVCMUN 2017.
Un Women is the core body for addressing matters related to the progress of
womens empowerment and gender equality in the international system. This
edition, UN Women will be Economic, Social and Political Upliftment of
Islamic Women; a sensitive yet widely ignored agenda.
In modern world where Gender discrimination in any front is highly condemned,
there has never been a proper justification regarding the topic in hand. As a
result of which, we have tried to cover the agenda in the most comprehensive
way possible way possible in this Background Guide.
Please Note, however, that the guide contains only background information and
it should only be the starting point of your research. It will take a lot more than
this to survive in committee and we encourage you to do as much of your own
research before and during the MUN in order to keep up.
Feel free to reach out to us via e-mail if you have any doubts regarding the
agenda. We will try to resolve it in the most fitting manner possible. We wish you
all the best for your preparation and look forward to seeing you all at DAV in
about a weeks time!

Warmest,

Arjita Bhan Shrey Nagrath

Swati S
Chairperson Co-Chairperson
Rapporteur
arjitabhan@gmail.com shreynagrath@gmail.com
swacasm@outlook.com
 THE COMMITTEE
Mandate
The mandate for UN-Women, is articulated in General Assembly resolution
64/2009 as follows: Based on the principle of universality, the Entity shall
provide, through its normative support functions and operational
activities, guidance and technical support to all Member States, across all
levels of development and in all regions, at their request, on gender
equality, the empowerment and rights of women and gender
mainstreaming.
UN-Women combines the mandate of four agencies. The mandate is
separated into political, norm-setting activities and operational activities
in cooperation with UN Member States. To improve coherence, consistency
and coordination, it is pivotal to establish common standards in the field of
gender equality and women empowerment. To this end, UN-Women now
serves as the secretariat to the Commission on the Status of Women
(CSW) and supports the agency in formulating such norms and standards
by inter alia submitting an annual report to the Commission. This mandate
was taken over from DAW when the programs were consolidated. Whereas
CSW is overall responsible for the formulation of standard-setting policies,
it is UN-Women that carries out these policies in its operational activities
in the field. UN-Women provides technical and financial assistance,
capacity building as well as policy guidance to Member States that
requests the Entitys support. UN-Women further facilitates the work of
the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and the
Security Council in their efforts to advance the global agenda on gender
equality. Finally, UN-Women was assigned to hold the UN system
accountable for its efforts to mainstream gender across all aspects of its
work.
Governance, Structure, and Membership
UN-Women is governed by an Executive Board, which is responsible for
intergovernmental support and supervision of all operational activities.
The Board consists of 41 members that are elected by ECOSOC for a term
of three years and are allocated by regions as follows: ten from the group
of African States, ten from the group of Asian States, four from the group
of Eastern European States, six from the group of Latin American and
Caribbean States, five from the group of Western European and Other
States. The final six seats are allocated to contributing countries, from
which four seats go to the countries that provide the highest voluntary
contribution to UN-Women and two seats to developing countries.
UN-Women is headed by an Executive Director, who is considered a senior
official at Under-Secretary-General (USG) level. The current Executive
Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, was appointed in 2013. The
Directorate performs the administrative functions of UN-Women and is
responsible for human resources including employment in operational
activities. The Executive Director also reports to the Secretary-General
and works to improve system-wide coordination by seeking exchange with
other agencies and programs both inside and outside the UN system. The
normative processes of UN-Women are funded by the regular budget of
the UN. However, its operational activities depend on voluntary
contributions of its members. In 2013, voluntary contributions added up to
a total budget of US $275.4 million.
Powers and Functions
UN-Womens areas of activity include peace and security, political
participation and government planning, the fight against HIV/AIDS, the
economic empowerment of women, participating in and shaping the
process of formulating sustainable development goals for the upcoming
decades, and ending violence against women and girls. To this end UN-
Women works closely with other UN bodies, programs, funds, civil society
organizations, and Member States in designing adequate policies, laws,
programs, and services.
Within the UN system, UN-Women functions as a normative body that
supports CSW in setting standards and norms by providing expert
knowledge and information on gender mainstreaming.
It supports the work of CSW by submitting an annual report to the
Commission informing it about the implementation of the Commissions
policy guidance. The chairperson of CSW can also be invited to address
the Executive Board of UN-Women directly. A second annual report is
submitted to the General Assembly through ECOSOC. This report delivers
information on the Entitys operational activities and provides research,
policy analysis, and recommendations for further action. The General
Assembly and ECOSOC can also draw the Entitys attention to issues and
request UN-Women to hold additional sessions when deemed necessary.
On an operational level, UN-Women facilitates regional conferences and
meetings with civil society organizations and national policymakers and
provides training for Member States to help them implement standards
through technical and financial support. This includes support in
formulating new laws or strategies, working on national educational
programs, training women to run more efficient political campaigns, or
assisting civil society organizations in becoming national advocates for
gender equality. Depending on the area of action, UN-Women works
together with other programs and funds, among them the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF). To examine coherence and coordination of
measures taken, UN-Women undertook an evaluation in cooperation with
UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, Norway, and Spain in November 2013, which has
helped drive efforts to continue to strengthen UN-Womens work. The
results of UN-Women programs help drive the development of evidence-
based normative standards and policies by the Commission on the Status
of Women.
Current Priorities
The current UN-Women strategic plan for the period 2014-17 identifies
womens economic and political empowerment and ending violence
against girls and women as top priorities. With the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) concluding in 2015, one further area of action
is to work on a post-2015 agenda by attending and shaping the process of
developing sustainable development goals for the upcoming decades.
Using the 2015 process, and the Beijing +20 review process to further
these issues remains of high importance for the organization.
Furthermore, UN-Womens Executive Director Mlambo-Ngcuka explicitly
called for increased support for older women and women with disabilities
as they are too often neglected in norm-setting considerations.
Recent Sessions
UN-Women provided substantive support for the fifty-eighth session of the
Commission on the Status of Women, held in March 2014. The meeting
discussed the challenges and achievements in implementing and
evaluating the MDGs for women and girls as well as how to speed up
underperforming MDGs. CSW criticized that the evaluation and
implementation of the MDGs too often lacks a gender perspective and
that the role of women and girls in achieving the MDGs needs to be
further acknowledged. UN-Womens Executive Board held its annual
session from 17-19 June 2014 at the UN Headquarters. The meeting
assessed the implementation of the strategic plan 2011-2013 and
evaluated coherence achieved within the UN system.
Member States stressed the importance to make gender equality a stand-
alone goal in the post-2015 agenda and to further the economic
empowerment of women, as well as their role in peace and security.
Furthermore, several Member States made presentations about the
Entitys activities on the ground and different programs that have been
launched with support of UN-Women. During the second regular session,
which was held from 15-16 September 2014, Member States addressed
the report of the annual session and started preparations for the 2015
regular and annual sessions. Other areas of concern discussed at the
second regular session included strategies to improve program evaluation
and monitoring mechanisms as well as fostering collaboration with sister
organizations to promote gender equality. The second regular session
further deliberated on the implementation of the BPfA and preparations
for the twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women
(Beijing+20). UN-Women was also represented at the AIDS Conference
held in Melbourne, Australia from 20-25 July 2014. Representatives gave
presentations on and participated in panels regarding advocacy and
political networks of women living with HIV, legal empowerment of women
living with or affected by HIV/AIDS, and integrating gender equality and
sexual rights in the post-2015 framework.
Conclusion
Since 2011, UN-Women has played a pivotal part in connecting standards
set by intergovernmental bodies with operational activities in the field. So
far, this approach has indeed improved coherence and coordination within
the UN system. Furthermore, in its conclusion of the fifty-eighth session,
CSW highlighted the role of UN-Women in monitoring and evaluating the
progress towards meeting international development goals, such as the
MDGs. Thus, with joint efforts, UN-Women can effectively carry out its
mandate and integrate a gender perspective in considerations of peace
and security, human rights, economic empowerment, and sustainable
development. However, it can only accomplish this mission by
strengthening its collaboration with UN agencies, Member States, and civil
society organizations, which are all essential stakeholders when it comes
to achieving gender equality.

THE AGENDA
Agenda: Economic, Social and Political Upliftment of
Islamic Women
Despite some popular images of Muslim women as repressed and
oppressed, many women today are actively affirming the rights and
responsibilities that they believe the Qur'an affords to them. The Holy
Book affirms that men and women are created from one soul to be
partners to each other, that males and females have the same religious
responsibilities, and that both genders will receive like rewards on the day
of judgment.
In only a few instances are circumstances for men and women notably
different in the Qur'an, and these verses are being seriously studied and
interpreted by both women and men today. Passages that seem to affirm
male authority over women are based on the Islamic understanding that
men are responsible for the financial support of women. Some Muslims
argue that they should be reinterpreted in cases where women are now
the financial providers. While the Qur'an allows a Muslim man to take up
to four wives, it also insists on equal treatment for all. Some Muslim
women are ensuring monogamous marriage by making it part of the
marriage contract, and polygamy is forbidden in states where it is against
the law.
Traditions that have circumscribed the full participation of women in
society are being scrutinized and challenged as antithetical to the
practices of Prophet Muhammad. Wives of the Prophet, known as the
"mothers of the faithful," serve as models for those Muslim women who
want to legitimize female activity in all ranges of society. Historians differ
in their explanation of why the freedoms available to the earliest Muslim
women were soon denied to most of their successors. In many areas of
the world through which Islam spread, and for much of its history, a
general patriarchy prevailed. Although it is still the norm in many Islamic
countries, in recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about
the necessity of reclaiming women's participation in the public realm.
Much of the conversation about women's rights has been based on issues
of legal reform as new nation-states have tried to work out the particulars
of Islamic family and personal laws. In recent years it has focused on such
matters as education, activity in various ranges of the workforce, political
participation, dress, and the assumption of new roles and responsibilities
for women in the practice of the faith. Of course there is not universal
agreement on these issues. Many traditional Muslims either actively or
passively still affirm the necessity of women remaining at home and
publicly inactive. The most extreme form of the segregation of women is
displayed in the determination of the Taliban to prohibit women's
education and to promote an exclusion that is neither suggested nor
supported by the Qur'an. Most Muslims condemn this treatment of women
as intolerable and incompatible with a truly Islamic system.
Muslim women, like their sisters everywhere, differ widely in their
interpretations of appropriate attire, behavior and attitude within the
Islamic context. Some insist on so-called "Islamic dress" and others do
not. Some want to work in the public realm and others do not. Some
consider themselves "feminist," but their definition is usually different
from the western understanding of the term. For those who wish to take
advantage of them, women's regional and international networks are
growing and are helping Muslim women together to raise appropriate
questions and find Islamic answers.
Further Research While researching this topic, delegates should
consider the following:
In regard to political participation of women:
What are successful strategies for involving women in politics?
How can Commission on Status of Women address the causes of low
political participation of women such as poverty, genderbased violence,
lack of access to education, political training, health services, the double
burden of unpaid care work, and gender stereotypes?
How can CSW help countries in transition to implement a gender-
sensitive political structure and agenda?
 What role does civil society play in fostering womens political
opportunities and how can cooperation with such organizations be
enhanced?
How can Commission on Status of Women involve itself in the post2015
process advocating political participation and leadership as a key
component for gender equality?
Key considerations for creation of an enabling environment for women:
Building a safe and healthy environment for women.
A life course approach to social security and support.
Gender and education for sustainable development.
Building womens capacity Encourage women to seize opportunities in
the Green Economy.
Increasing knowledge on sustainable energy and climate protection.
Training on business support systems and use of information and
communication technologies
Facilitate access to financial resources.
Involve women at all levels or Fair representation of women.
Increasing womens participation in decision-making.
Womens involvement and participation in sustainable development
processes
On a final note, our final recommendations to you would be to research
and understand the topic and its aspects well first, and then go into
researching your countrys position in this regard. Make sure to know all of
the related conferences, programs, and initiatives taken by the United
Nations bodies or INGOs in relation to gender equality and development.
Keep in mind that it is always interesting to have facts, figures and
numbers that make whatever you have to say even stronger. Also, while
writing your position paper, try to answer the questions posed above to
have a comprehensive and concrete one. Feel free to bring your position
paper with you to the conference, as it may help you stay in character and
have a fast reference back whenever you need it. If you still feel you lack
proper knowledge and do not know where to start your research, reread
the background guide, read and read again.
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