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Ms. Letty Chiwara is the Cross Regional Programmes Manager at UNIFEM Headquarters in New York. Prior to joining the UNIFEM Southern Africa Regional Office in Harare as National Programme Officer in 1998, Ms. Chiwara worked as a Town Planning Officer with the government of Zimbabwe. She holds a Masters Degree from the University College London in Urban Development Planning.
Ms. Chiwara spoke to UN Connections about emerging issues at the UN relating to women:
What are your responsibilities in your current position?
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As cross-regional manager, I have three programs that I’m managing for the organization:
The EC/UN Partnership on Gender Equality for Development and Peace. It is a US$7,180,066 program focusing on gender equality and the aid effectiveness agenda and it involves 12 countries.
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The partnership UNIFEM has just begun with the World Bank and an impact evaluation organization called the International Center for Research on Women which is based in Washington, DC. It’s a US$3.0 million program, being piloted in 6 countries. Through short-term pilot projects, we have to demonstrate how to do women’s economic empowerment programs in a way that is sustainable, can have real impact, can influence policy, and can influence the Banks’ lending programs to countries.
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UNIFEM’s portfolio of UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) funded programs. So far, we have 10 programs from the previous cycle that are in their second year. We applied for the latest UNDEF round and hope to have more programs this year.
What is UNIFEM doing at the UN in order to ensure greater implementation of Resolution 1325 (on women, peace and security)?
The way we have been trying to support the implementation of Res. 1325 is by working with women’s organizations, so that they do advocacy at the country-level for their governments to realize the importance of integrating women into peace building in post-conflict situations or in actual conflict situations. In Africa, notably Sudan and Somalia, we have held awareness-raising sessions on Res. 1325.
The major challenge we face is that governments are not taking 1325 as seriously as they have taken other internationally binding declarations on women’s rights and gender equality. They don’t have an obligation to report on 1325. The reporting process for the Beijing Platform for Action and CEDAW, are well established. We would like to see much more being done on 1325.
How can financing for gender equality contribute to end violence against women?
First of all, UNIFEM’s “Say No to Violence against Women” is a campaign to raise, not only awareness, but resources. That’s why it is very linked to the financing issue. Every time you visit the “Say No to Violence against Women” website www.saynotoviolence.org – you are contributing $1.
We realize the impact of violence against women on their economic empowerment, HIV/AIDS, on their potential role in politics or in decision-making. UNIFEM had a big campaign in the late 1990’s on violence against women. It had a huge awareness-raising impact, but it still didn’t stop people from violating women. We see the need to raise the momentum again, through both UNIFEM’s campaign, and the Secretary-General’s campaign which is an inter-agency effort. If the financing for development discourse goes on without a particular focus on violence against women and funding to address violence against women, then we will have missed the boat.
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