In March 2025, the UN Secretary-General announced that the United Nations was launching an initiative UN80 aimed at reforming the United Nations system. He emphasised that the reforms are not just about internal processes but aimed at delivering tangible improvements in peace, development and humanitarian aid,while ensuring that public funds are used wisely and transparently.
Women’s Platform for Action International (WoPAI) – a global platform of women’s rights organisations created to advance the human rights of women and girls in the face of the multidimensional backlash welcomes this initiative. We believe the UN80 could provide an excellent opportunity for the UN system to evaluate its role in protecting and promoting women’s rights, and to take action. Women’s human rights are not only integral but essential to peace, development and humanitarian aid, as they are to the UN system. Regretfully, in the past two decades, instead of strengthening them, the United Nations system has contributed to jeopardising women and girls’ human rights in several significant ways.
From multiple UN publications and statements of UN officials, to the reports from grassroots women’s rights organisations engaged with UN actors in different regions of the world, empirical evidence demonstrates that many UN offices (such as the OHCHR), Specialised Agencies (such as the UN Women) and Special Procedures (such as the UN Special Rapporteurs on Health and on Culture), have departed from internationally agreed standards on women’s human rights. They also contributed to a culture within the UN system conducive to the decimation of such standards.
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