Women's rights advocates to raise $1 billion for UN agency

MANILA, Philippines - Women’s rights advocates from Asia Pacific have pledged to initiate the fund raising is $1 billion to speed up the creation of an agency under the United Nations that is focused on the protection of women’s rights.

The advocates attended the Asia Pacific NGO forum on Beijing+15 held at the Miriam College in Quezon City last Saturday night.

Dr. Patricia Licuanan, convenor of the forum, said existing mechanisms in the UN “have not been able to deliver” noting that existing entities are usually “under-funded and at the low level.”

“If the UN is serious (in protecting the rights of women) it should create (a body) that is of higher level and with more resources,” she said at the forum.

Licuanan said a resolution has been passed last September by the UN General Assembly approving the creation of the body.

But as former senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani noted, the UN had expressed that it would take about $1 billion to create the entity for women protection.

“At this forum, we have decided that the Asia Pacific women should contribute to financing. Once we raise the $1 billion, then the UN will have to raise also $1 billion,” she said in jest.

The forum held in the country is expected to come up with a declaration by the Asia Pacific NGOs to be presented at the High-Level Inter-governmental meeting on Beijing+15 to be convened by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in November.

Following the UN Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing back in September 1995, the Beijing Platform for Action was agreed upon to address critical areas in the protection of women’s rights.

The Asia Pacific forum’s declaration will also presented at the global NGO Forum in February next year in New York before the 54th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

According to Licuanan, the independent UN agency that they are pushing should “work for women on the ground” once it is established.