Women's Sites
- Women Watch is the official
United Nations gateway to UN conferences and other information on women,
including
- DAW, the Division for the Advancement of Women, advocates the improvement of the status of women and the achievement of their equality with men, and was the UN unit servicing CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women through 2007; from Jan. 1, 2008 the responsibility transferred to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, through the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
- INSTRAW, the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, promotes and undertakes research and training programmes to contribute to the advancement of women and gender equality worldwide. INSTRAW has a Gender Methodologies database, a Global Directory of Gender, Peace and Security Research Institutions, and a Gender Training wiki.
-
UNIFEM, the UN Development Fund for
Women, provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies that promote women's human rights, political participation and economic security. Among the many offerings on the site are Annual Reports, and a Report series Progress of the World's Women, issued approximately biennielly and each with a different focus:
2000, 2002, volume 1: Women, War, and Peace, 2002 Volume 2: Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals,
2005: Women, Work and Poverty
news, and Who Answers to Women? Gender and Accountability, Progress...2008/2009. See also the newsletter Currents, and the report Pathway to Gender Equality, which outlines how CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action can be used as a lens to understand and address the gender equality dimensions of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and a portal on Gender and HIV/AIDS.
- OSAGI, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, advises the Secretary-General on integrating gender issues into the policy of the United Nations
- IANWGE, the Interagency Network on Women and Gender Equality, is a network of "Gender Focal Points in United Nations offices, specialized agencies, funds and programmes7quot;
- Direct URLs for Beijing+5 documents, reportage, final outcome document,
and followup:
- http://www.un.org/womenwatch/confer/beijing5l
- http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/followup/beijing+5.htm (official documents, meetings, government responses to the UN questionnaire, NGO participation guidelines, and preparation updates for Beijing +5)
- http://www.un.org/womenwatch/followup/beijing5/unagency.htm (UN system activities and reports)
- WomenAction 2000 (http://www.womenaction.org/) is a global information, communication and media network that enabled NGOs to actively engage in the Beijing+5 review process. It received financial support from Women Watch. Issues of Preview 2000 about the Beijing +5 process, a daily newspaper during the conference, and followup actions can be found on the site.
- The International Women's Tribune Centre (http://www.iwtc.org/) website is another source of information on followup to Beijing +5. (Click on "Platform for Action."), Click on 7quot;Women's Global Net" or "What's New?" for Calendar of upcoming women-related events at the UN.
- In looking for statistics and other facts about women, use Statistics and Indicators and GenderInfo. Use Women of the World for statistical and other fact searches by country or region.
- Global Issues: Women page is another gateway into women and gender focal points throughout the UN. The "UN System" tab leads to links to UN bodies, legal instruments, conferences, etc., regional commissions, information on violence against women initiatives, and numerous documents concerning women's issues.
Other UN Sites with Women's Information
- The News Centre site of the Office of Public Information can be searched for "women" or "gender" news releases from the last 2 weeks, 30 days or 45 days. The Radio section can also be searched, as well as other formats of the UN Multimedia site.
- The Capital Development Fund has a report: "Supporting Women's Livelihoods Microfinance that Works for the Majority: A Guide to Best Practices" (January 2002), a Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (POGAR) with a Gender component, and many more items of relevance.
- UNICEF (UN Children's Fund) has a Gender Mainstreaming in Water, Environment and Sanitation page, Basic Education & Gender Equality page, a report "Women Teachers Empowered in India: Teacher Training Through A Gender Lens" (52p), and more (use the search engine and search for "gender").
- The Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) site has a Gender Mainstreaming area, and several publications in fulltext on the site (search for "women" or "gender").
- The Department of Economic and Social Affairs search form finds the full text of material from the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and various commissions that come under the Economic and Social Council (dates vary -- some from 1981-present). The ESA has published Indigenous Women and the United Nations System: Good Practices and Lessons Learned and other publications.
- The Development Programme has a Women's Empowerment site with numerous documents that discuss how to incorporate gender into develop programs of various sorts.
- The Department for Disarmament Affairs has a Gender and Disarmament area.
- The Economic Commission for Europe has a Gender Activities area and Gender Statistics Website for Europe and North America
- The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific has a website for its Gender and Development Section.
- The Food and Agriculture Organization has a Gender and Food Security section; a search through the site also reveals many other pages concerning women, food, and agriculture.
- The High Commissioner for Human Rights site includes the texts of international human rights instruments, Human Rights Treaty Bodies Database that is useful for monitoring the implementation of international human rights treaties, including Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and a section on women.
- News on gender issues from Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRINnews.org), Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
- The High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) site is searchable. Search for "refugee women," putting the phrase in quotation marks.
- The Population Fund publishes the report series "State of the World Population." Women-focused reports or sections are A Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration (2006) ; The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals (2005) ; The Cairo Consensus at Ten: Population, Reproductive Health and The Global Effort to End Poverty (2004) ; (2002) includes a chapter on "Women and Gender Inequality." 2000, includes chapters on Violence Against Women, Men, Reproductive Rights, and Gender Equality, Counting the Costs of Gender Inequality, Women's Rights Are Human Rights, and Working Towards the Future. The Population Fund has also mounted a web exhibit on ending violence against women.
- The Population Information Network of the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs includes World Abortion Policies 1999, World Contraceptive Use 1998, World Fertility Patterns 1997, and many population trends by world region and country.
- Humanitarian Affairs sponsors ReliefWeb, which offers a search of documents from the UN and others concerning relief operations. Search for "gender."
- The Commission on Science and Technology has a UN monitoring Gender Working Group (GST Gateway Gender Advisory Board), associated with Women in Global Science and Technology (WIGSAT) [links private?]
- The Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has a searchable database of policy papers, summaries of conference presentations, etc.
- The Secretariat has an Office for the Focal Point on Women to monitor the status of women employees of the Secretariat.
- The Statistics Division has mounted Millenium Indicators, charting progress toward such goals as promoting gender equality and empowering women, eradicting poverty and hunger, improving material health,
UN-Related Sites From Outside the UN
- The International Institute for Sustainable Development, (IISD), a Canadian non-profit organization, has a page about the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, Sept. 1995) and follow-up activities. The IISD also has articles reporting on UN Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, Sept., 1994) written by members of Women's Feature Service, a wire service composed of over 150 women reporters from 40 countries, headquartered in New Delhi, and various other relevant links, mostly under "human development."
- The United States Mission to the UN's Search Page can be searched for "women" or for "gender." See also the United States Dept. of State's Office of Global Women's Issues page.
- University of Minnesota Human Rights Library U.N. Documents page provides access by issuing body and is searchable by keyword, such as "women."
- Consult the UN Documentation: Research Guide from the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the UN for information on indexes to U.N. documents, explanations of the various types of documents, and help deciphering document symbols.
- Consult the UN Scholars' Workstation from Yale University for help understanding research approaches to UN information and make use of other research tools on the site. Some of the information is Yale-specific and restricted to Yale users; however, most of the material in "research approaches" and "research tools" is not.
- The American Truths Company sells an audio presentation on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and on CEDAW. Site has excerpts.
- The Women's UN Report Program & Network (WUNRN) is a non-governmental organization to implement the conclusions and recommendations of a United Nations Study on Freedom of Religion of Belief and the Status of Women From the Viewpoint of Religion and Traditions (E/CN.4/2002/73/Add.2).
- Women's World Summit creates Circles of Compassion, in preparation for conferences.