For many years, the UN has faced serious challenges in promoting gender equality around the world, including inadequate funding and the lack of a single entity to lead the UN’s work on gender equality. In July 2010, the UN General Assembly created UN Women, a UN entity focused on issues such as gender equality and women’s empowerment. The creation of UN Women was part of a UN reform agenda that helped pool resources and authority for greater impact. The entity emerged from and built on the important work of four previously separate parts of the UN system that focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment, namely:
- Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW);
- International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW);
- The Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women;
- United Nations Development Fund for Women.