UN Women to merge with UNFPA - sensible or de-politicising women's issues to their bodily functions?

[IwantToRetire]

IPPF’s response to the UNFPA-UN Women merger assessment

IPPF is alarmed that the proposal fails to fulfil the imperative of the UN80 reform and will have detrimental impacts on the UN's work on gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

https://www.ippf.org/news/ippfs-response-unfpa-un-women-merger-assessment

This was proposed April 2026, but no date set.

Anything that has the word women in it must go. 🤬 We're being completely erased from the narrative of the human race.

Unwomen has been well named and utterly useless for some time. Its disappearance will be no great loss at this point, but it is a pointer that support for women from these large international bodies is being systematically removed at a time when women’s rights are already going backwards.

Bump

https://www.un.org/un80-initiative/en/media/577

The report.

' the lack of evidence and data underpins the fear that this is a politically motivated process; aiming to undermine peoples’ rights, hard-won gains and weaken UN institutions that specifically focus on SRHR and gender equality for all.'

It's very sad what has happened to the UN. Another organisation that has lost its way and threatens to do harm where it was intended to do good.

I used to think very highly of the UN and assumed that research or guidance emanating from it represented an international consensus and was the work of international experts in their field. About eight years ago I had to review a UN research report and I was shocked at the standard. Shouldn't have been, really, but I'd never stopped to think about how the UN actually operates. Haven't been able to take them seriously since.

Some bits are good, but it's impossible to know which, without delving into the financial and political weeds - and the answer changes when the politics, finance and personnel at the various agencies, commissions etc. change.

I honestly think they should be merged.
UNFPA should be under UN Women.

Reproductive rights, forced marriage, pregnancy care are all women’s issues.
Why should UNFPA be independent from UN Women?

The funds and people can be more powerful working under the same leadership. Otherwise you get duplication of effort and the two can be played against each other.

? UN Women isn’t going away. It is assimilating UNFPA - adding budget and manpower- to make it bigger and more important.

”UN Women’s current institutional architecture would require substantial strengthening to absorb and safely sustain UNFPA’s large-scale clinical,
commodity-based, and humanitarian operations, including procurement, quality
assurance, supply chains, and surge capacity.”

Just like how it was created from 4 UN offices in 2010.

I can’t understand why it’s being pitched as bad news.

That's what I thought.

If they are to be merged UN Women should still be the overall name, and within it along with women being empowered to be part of politics etc., a focus on how women's biology and motherhood impacts on their / our lives.

But somehow it feels like it is just going to be part of the UN moving away from sex as a class to gender being an identifier.

Read the report @Clusterfuckular posted, there is none of that in it to cause such a random feeling.

reposting their link:

https://www.un.org/un80-initiative/en/media/577

It is very clear the objective is to accelerate equality and feminism around the globe. They want to use UNFPA’s presence (ie sexual health clinics) in many countries where women are most marginalised to also carry out initiatives on women’s rights beyond health & reproduction like for girls to get or women to stay in education, to work and be financially independent, to have access to child care, microbanking for female entrepreneurs, all that UN Women does.

Yes I know, but if you saw the OP is based on the response of IPPF who seem to have a much more what happens in reality approach.

No, their paper is the politically motivated one.

IPFF would prefer to not be under UN Women, they don’t want UN Women leadership in charge of their programs which are currently under UNFPA. They fear efficiencies that will identify duplication of effort and working cross purpose- which would mean cuts to their budget and their jobs.

IPFF are worried their programs for transgender women will not make the cut. They see sexual health and intimacy as not women’s issues and have diluted the mission away from Women.

I don’t care whether UN Women keeps its name, the point is that the leaders of UN Women will be taking over and directing the entire UN sexual health, reproductive rights, pregnancy care efforts and UN Women leadership will finally get to put their foot down and properly prioritise these efforts in line with the report which clearly says the mission is to accelerate feminism not cater to gender ideology and cosmetic surgery.

If that's true, then I stand corrected and it does seem like a good move.

I do care, however, if UN Woman keep their name, all the initiatives you've mentioned concern woman and should be done in the name of women, there are too many countries who are members of the UN that discriminate against their female citizens as a matter of custom and practice, removing the word Women will make them even more invisible and irrelevant in those countries.

The UN that made Munroe Bergdorf its representative for women in the UK in 2023?
Excuse me if i don't give a monkeys about the whole organisation.