Working for Women's empowerment and Gender Equality
UNIFEM is the women's fund at the United Nations. Established in 1976, it provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies aimed at fostering women's empowerment and gender equality. UNIFEM also helps make the voices of women heard at the United Nations — to highlight critical issues and advocate for the implementation of existing commitments made to women.
With its headquarters in New York, UNIFEM today works in over 100 countries and has 15 regional offices in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS).
Placing the advancement of women's human rights at the centre of all of its efforts, UNIFEM focuses its activities on four strategic areas:
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Reducing feminized poverty
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Ending violence against women
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Reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and
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girls, and Achieving gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace as well as war
The Sub-regional Office of UNIFEM South Asia is based in New Delhi, India. It covers nine countries of the region, i.e., Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
UNIFEM works in partnership with governments, women’s organizations, the UN System, bi-lateral agencies, the SAARC Secretariat, civil society, national and international NGOs and research organizations.
Two international agreements frame UNIFEM's work: the Beijing Platform for Action resulting from the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The spirit of these agreements has been affirmed by the Millennium Declaration and the eight Millennium Development Goals for 2015, combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy and gender inequality, and building partnerships for development. The Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security also provides a crucial reference for UNIFEM's work in support of women in conflict and post-conflict situations. In South Asia, it is also guided by the regional mandates, which emerge from the South Asian regional ministerial meetings, which are held to track progress on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. Since 1996, UNIFEM has been organizing these meetings biennially in partnership with Governments of the region.
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Fund for Gender Equality UNIFEM is pleased to announce the first call for proposals for the Fund for Gender Equality, a multi-donor initiative dedicated to the advancement of high-impact gender equality programmes that focus on women’s economic and/or political empowerment at local and national levels. Application deadline: 30 September 2009. more |
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www.cedawphotocontest.org SUBMISSION DEADLINE 15 OCTOBER 2009 Winners will be notified by early November more
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List of High-Level Government Supporters of the Campaign
