In September, after years of pushing by AIDS-Free World and women’s groups from around the world, UN member states passed a resolution to move swiftly to create a new UN agency for women. AIDS-Free World is demanding that the UN rely on the innovation, wisdom and energy of women’s civil society organizations to inform every aspect of the development of the new agency.

We understand the UN Secretariat is considering UNAIDS’ governance structure as a possible model for the new women’s agency.  Undeniably, the UN has a lot to learn from the successes of the AIDS movement in demanding that the international community create institutions that respond to their needs and rely on their expertise.  If not for the global community of AIDS activists we wouldn’t have the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, nor would we have the participation of people with AIDS on the governing body of UNAIDS. 
But is the UNAIDS governance structure the right model for the new women’s agency? Let’s take a closer look.

The UNAIDS Structure:

Established: 1994 by ECOSOC and launched in January 1996.

Oversight:  Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) consisting of:

·         Representatives of 22 rotating governments representing all geographic regions, and the UNAIDS Co-sponsors (UNHCR, UNDP, UNICEF, WFP, UNFPA, UNODC, ILO, UNESCO, WHO, World Bank)

·         A 10-member rotating NGO delegation, open to associations of people living with HIV from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America,  Latin America and the Caribbean. What's of critical importance, however, is that the civil society representatives have no real governing role; they can observe and advise, but ultimately, they are excluded from decision-making. (Recently, the NGO delegation requested to the secretariat that an additional seat on the PCB be designated specifically for a person living with AIDS, but a decision on this has not yet been made.)

The current PCB NGO Delegation represents a diverse group of civil society organizations, all with vital expertise and experience to bring to the table.

·         Africa: The Cameroonian Network of Associations of People Living with HIV/AIDS (RECAP+) and the Southern African Network of AIDS Service Organizations (SANASO).

·         Asia/Pacific: The 7 Sisters, Thailand and the AntiAIDS Association, Kyrgyz Republic.

·         Europe: The Russian Harm Reduction Network and Action Against AIDS, Germany.

·         Latin America/Caribbean: Rede Latino-Americana de Reducão de Daños (RELARD), Brazil  and the  Bolivian Network of people living with HIV/AIDS (REDBOL)

·         North America: The Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development, Canada and the International Women's Health Coalition, USA.

These representatives can advise and express their opinions, but they cannot vote.

The Role of the PCB[1]

·         To establish broad policies and priorities for the Joint Programme

·         To review and decide upon the planning and execution of the Joint Programme. For this purpose it is kept informed of all aspects of the development of the Joint Programme and considers reports and recommendations submitted to it by the Executive Director, and the Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations (CCO)

·         To review and approve the plan of action and budget for each financial period, prepared by the Executive Director and reviewed by the CCO;

·         To review proposals of the Executive Director and approve arrangements for the financing of the Joint Programme;

·         To review longer term plans of action and their financial implications;

·         To review audited financial statements submitted by the Joint Programme;

·         To make recommendations to the Cosponsoring Organizations regarding their activities in support of the Joint Programme, including those of mainstreaming [the AIDS response, not to be confused with gender mainstreaming];

·         To review periodic reports that evaluate the progress of the Joint Programme towards the achievement of its goals

The New UN Agency for Women Should Not be a "Coordinating" Organization

UNAIDS is not an appropriate model for the new women's agency because it is a "coordinating" organization, not an autonomous agency with decision making authority within the highest ranks of the UN hierarchy. Further, it has a very limited budget and it does not have significant staff presence or operational capacity on the ground.

The UNAIDS experience shows that it is difficult to coordinate the work of large, autonomous

UN agencies (in this case, the UNAIDS Co-Sponsoring Organizations), because they are not accountable to the coordinating body. (Recognizing this problem, the Secretary-General promoted the Executive Director of UNAIDS from Assistant Secretary-General to Under-Secretary-General in hopes that a rank equal to that of the heads of the UNAIDS Cosponsoring Organizations would provide added authority.) While this promotion undoubtedly helped raise the profile of UNAIDS and its ability to advocate for resources, it did little to bolster the capacity of country offices to fulfill their near-impossible coordinating tasks.

The UNAIDS structure includes seven Regional Support Teams that are meant to provide guidance and technical support for UNAIDS' 81 country offices. These small satellite offices rarely succeed in aligning the country operations of the Co-Sponsoring Organizations, most of which have considerably more seniority, authority, staff and resources. Interviews with UNAIDS staff featured in a recent study of UNAIDS' organizational structure revealed that a ballooning staff at regional and headquarter levels has led to inefficiency and duplication, while country offices are under-staffed and struggling.  The report states: "Those on the ground argue that there is a deficient level of staff, and expectations and workload are too heavy for a small number of staff to address at country level."[2]

The problem would be magnified many times over for a gender advisor attached to a coordinating body. Given the dearth of substantive work now being done by the UN on gender and women's empowerment, there is no question that reforming the women's machinery by placing a secretariat at the headquarters level to support a network of country level gender coordinators, each with inadequate staff, no authority and no significant resources, is a plan that's destined to fail. Added to the problem of limited authority and budget is an additional built-in disadvantage: in many countries, there is simply no significant programming on gender or women's empowerment to coordinate.

Mechanisms for Civil Society Participation in UNAIDS

The mechanisms UNAIDS has developed for ensuring civil society participation are progressive for a UN organization, but still inadequate. Ultimate control rests with Member States, who are not required to take civil society's positions into consideration. It is worth reminding ourselves here that governments are still overwhelmingly dominated by men. Women, having weathered hundreds of suffrage movements, are unlikely to embrace a new structure that vests authority in men, and denies women a vote.  Therefore both the positive and negative aspects of the UNAIDS mechanisms are worth studying in order to inform models for improved civil society participation for the women's agency.

UNAIDS should be recognized for its role as the first UN entity to build a governance structure that includes permanent, second-tier seats for representatives of NGOs. NGO delegation members can place items on the agenda, table resolutions, and participate in drafting sessions and negotiations, but again, they cannot vote. While UNAIDS has not given civil society real governing power, it has managed to give  profile to people living with AIDS and marginalized groups by including them in the NGO Delegation with advisory capacity on the Board. A 2007 independent review of NGO participation on the PCB by an independent consultant, under the guidance of a Working Group with membership from civil society and UNAIDS, revealed that both governments and Co-Sponsoring Organizations appreciate the "invaluable first-hand perspectives that [NGO representatives] have brought."

Finally, UNAIDS has recently displayed a non-monetary commitment to providing technical support for substantive participation of the NGO Delegation in the PCB. During the last PCB meeting, a decision was taken to develop an independent Communication and Consultation Facility (CF) to enhance the participation of the NGO delegation.

The CF will be run by an international AIDS NGO that will bid for the job in a competitive process. It will be administered through the UNAIDS secretariat, but in order to ensure independence from the secretariat, "its creation, implementation and performance management would belong to the NGO Delegation." [3] The CF's responsibilities will include managing the recruitment and orientation process for new members; liaising with other civil society networks, such as NGO and community representatives on the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria; providing ongoing support to the NGO Delegation on matters relevant to the PCB agenda; and fundraising for additional activities to support civil society participation and consultation.

Meaningful Participation or Tokenism?

According to governments interviewed for the Independent Review of NGO/civil society participation in the PCB, "The NGO Delegation brings vibrancy, passion and a reality-check.  It, in particular, enables the Programme Coordinating Board to be more responsive and accountable to the real issues and needs of people living with HIV and affected communities."[4] But all this vibrancy and passion does not entitle civil society to a vote.

The same Independent Review report recommends that the NGO delegation be granted voting status, and cites other international agencies such as the ILO, which has a tripartite system that divides seats among governments, employers and workers; the Stop TB Partnership, which allocates seats to foundations and the private sector; and the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, which has Northern NGO, Southern NGO and Affected Communities Delegations, each with a vote.[5]

However, during the last PCB meeting, the voting members elected not to give the NGO Delegation voting rights.

UNAIDS also has an NGO Observer System, but it is only accessible to NGOs that are already to a certain extent engaged with UNAIDS, are aware of its meetings and mechanisms, and can raise their own funds to attend. NGOs representing marginalized groups, whose work is often under-funded and whose contributions often go unrecognized, are left out of the process simply because there is no active attempt to reach them. It is hoped that the newly approved Communications and Consultation Facility will help the NGO delegation reach out more broadly to civil society, but in the meantime, would-be NGO observers have no clear channels of communications and interactions with the NGO Delegation, and their expertise goes unused.[6]

One Civil Society Engagement Mechanism Does Not Fit All

The governance of the women's agency should take into account a particular characteristic that distinguishes women from other beneficiaries of the work of specialized agencies, funds and programmes. Full equality between women and men has been a universally agreed principle and goal since the UN was first established, but over the past 60-plus years, women's incremental progress toward that goal has been achieved in spite of, rather than because of the United Nations. In the absence of UN leadership, support, funding, programming and advocacy for women, women have found ways to organize themselves, and fight for their own survival, protection, participation and equality.

It is imperative-both for the success of the women's agency, and for the health of the United Nations-that the UN recognize its shortcomings in the realm of gender.  The new UN women's agency must have mechanisms that allow for the participation of women's civil society organizations-which  have more experience, knowledge and expertise on gender issues than governments do-in its decision-making, from headquarters to country level.

There are lessons to be learned from the UNAIDS experience, so that full and meaningful participation is achieved and tokenism is avoided. For civil society participation overall, governance roles should be informed by successful structures outside of the UN-in particular by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. But women leaders within civil society, particularly those at the grassroots who can document the myriad ways that they are still excluded from all the "civil society mechanisms", should be given opportunities from the outset to contribute their expertise and creativity to the development of entirely new structures. The UN Secretariat must start listening and including women's organizations now, as it develops the institutional options that will be presented to Member States for consideration during the 63^rd session.

[1] UNAIDS Website, http://www.unaids.org/en/AboutUNAIDS/Governance/default.asp

[2] Background report for UNAIDS Leadership Transition Group, Devi Sridhar, et al.

[3] Independent Review: NGO/Civil Society Participation in the Programme Coordinating Board of UNAIDS, 2007

[4] Ibid.

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

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