Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign 

The European Focal Point of the GEAR Campaign has launched a website (www.un-gear.eu) to engage civil society organisations and individuals in the Campaign, which presses governments to improve the way the United Nations works for gender equality, and to create a single strong women’s entity. Worldwide, women are less likely to go to school, receive adequate health care, or own property. The Campaign argues that the United Nations could have a better role in working for women’s rights at the global level, and that its current bodies dealing with gender equality lack resources and coherence to really deliver for women.

  In 2006 women from all over the world pressured the United Nations to add the reform of its gender equality bodies on the agenda of its current reform process. The GEAR Campaign, a network of more than 300 civil society organisations, was formally launched in 2008 to follow up this process.

Specifically, the GEAR Campaign is demanding:

• The consolidation of the existing UN agencies addressing gender equality into a single improved and independent entity.

• The new entity to be headed by an Under Secretary-General in order to secure a higher level of authority for the new entity within the UN.

• An annual budget starting at $1 billion, increasing over time.

• Universal field presence and strong policy and programmatic mandate.

• The involvement of women’s organisations and global civil society in its processes.