The Power of the Collective: UN System Coordination for Gender Equality

Episode: 3 Podcast Title: Power Of...  Episode Title: The Power of the Collective: UN System Coordination for Gender EqualityTune in to the Power Of… Podcast, a conversation that dives into critical, thought-provoking, and contemporary content to drive gender equality and global health. Johanna Riha hosts this podcast and works at the United Nations University in Malaysia—she is passionate about seeing true transformation occur in these areas.In this episode, Johanna continues the conversation on the power of the collective and is joined by Florence Hamimi, the Coordinator Advisor and Deputy Director of the Coordination Division in UN Women. Florence starts the conversation by sharing that her interest and passion for coordination came from seeing how effectively North African civil society actors worked together to drive change and advance gender issues in the region. Florence then goes on to share her reflections on the think piece authored by Zineb Touimi Benjelloun and Joanne Sandler beginning with her thoughts on two of the obstacles mentioned in the think piece: 1) size and status mattering more than technical expertise and 2) the ‘high cost of coordination.’ Florence reiterates that despite the triple mandate of the UN women and their skills and legitimacy to coordinate gender equality and women’s empowerment across the UN system, there is a lack of recognition of the role and responsibility of coordination entails, especially at the country level. Florence also shares her views that if coordination is done well it should actually reduce costs, highlighting the need to improve reporting and accountability mechanisms to assess the actual cost of coordination in relation to the impact. Florence raises a third obstacle she believes needs to be considered – the competing thematic interests and prioritisation of different population groups vis-à-vis gender equality and women’s empowerment. She points out that issues on gender equality for women and girls are often framed as if they relate to a minority group, when in fact women and girls make up half of the global population.  As the conversation continues, Johanna notes that the UN’s gender architecture is currently under review and asks Florence what points the review should focus on and interrogate to ensure that gender equality architecture is strengthened across the UN. Florence provides four points that she would like to see highlighted in the review, namely: 1) enhancing, clarifying and strengthening UN Women’s coordination mandate, 2) more clearly delineating and articulating what coordination means and looks like at the different levels of the UN system (global, regional, and country-level), 3) improving existing accountability mechanisms within the system, and 4) providing more evidence on the costs and potential cost-benefits of coordination. In line with this, issues around accountability were raised – specifically, what steps can and should be taken to improve existing accountability structures to improve collective action, rather than create new ones. Florence points out that we should move beyond simply telling people that they are accountable, but rather we need to ensure that they know where to access accountability tools and that they have the technical expertise to implement these tools effectively to enhance a gender-based approach. In conclusion, Johanna asks Florence how the UN can be more inclusive of feminist civil society actors – not only in terms of their role as implementers, but also how the UN can learn from their experience and expertise when it comes to coordination and collective action. In response, Florence states that there is a need to draw on feminist expertise to transform the current hierarchical culture of the UN system to incorporate and develop horizontal leadership structures. She ends off by stating that