UNIFEM is the Women’s Fund at the United Nations. It was created in 1976 by the UN General Assembly resolution in 1976, in response to the call from the women’s movement. It was set up to be an aid to and advocate for women of the developing world-to give them voice and visibility. It serves as a bridge between global policy-makers and grassroots women in the developing world and is a key institution for forming linkages and bridging micro-voices to macro-policies.
The fund is an autonomous organization that works in close association with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Programs
- Engendering Governance:
> Strengthening accountability by engendering institutions, systems and processes of governance, which include engendering of development planning processes as also systems of economic governance through engendered fiscal systems.
> Engendering the leadership of women in politics to play a transformatory role in policy and development planning in South Asia.
> Enabling gender responsiveness in the bureaucracy.
> Strengthening the intellectual and conceptual understanding of South Asia networks of organizations and individuals committed to gender-just and sustainable development.
- Promoting Human Rights:
> Facilitating the implementation of human rights instruments and bring laws into conformity with human rights standards.
> Strengthening institutional mechanisms for gender justice.
> Addressing different forms of violence against women and girls in the home and the community and socio-cultural practices and socialization processes that perpetuate it.
> Developing actions to address women’s human rights in the context of conflict and post-conflict.
> Promoting well defined preventive, protective and prosecution strategies in the region to reduce trafficking of women and children.
> Projecting the gender dimension of HIV/AIDS into the public discourse in HIV/ AIDS, including the Government, NGOs, bilateral and UN agencies.
- Economic Security and Rights:
> Highlighting women’s work and their economic contributions by engendering Census Exercises in India, Nepal and Pakistan.
> Building women’s capacities and improving their access to larger markets and financial products and services.
> Improving living and working conditions for migrant women workers in Nepal and Sri Lanka, home-based workers and mountain women.
- Catalyzing gender mainstreaming within the UN system:
> Building gender sensitivity’ into the UNDAF process.
> Supporting and catalyzing the work of the Inter-agency Working Group on Gender.
- Building synergy with UNDP and other UN agencies.
Contact Address
Ms. Chandni Joshi,
Regional Programme Director
L’mled Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
223 Jor Bagh. New Delhi – 110 003
Tel: 91-11-24698297. 24604351
Fax: 91-11-24622136.24627612
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.unifem.org.in