Six experts on gender equality and women’s empowerment make up a new advisory group to the UN General Assembly President. The group is expected to develop a plan of action for the 75th UNGA session (2020-2021) and beyond.

The Gender Advisory Group was constituted to inform the Presidency’s work in mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment throughout the UNGA. 

As announced on 22 October 2020, the members are:

• Jukka Salovaara, President, UN Women Executive Board
• Nahla Valji, Senior Gender Advisor to UN Secretary-General
• Sanda Ojiambo, UN Global Compact Executive Director
• Dubravka Simonovic, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
• Soon Young-Yoon, Principal Investigator for NGO Committee on the Status of Women
• Patricia Torsney, Inter-parliamentary Union Permanent Observer

The Group will begin meeting on 10 November 2020.

In 2017, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched a UN system-wide strategy to address gender parity. It provides a roadmap for reaching gender parity within the UN’s senior levels of leadership by 2021 and across the UN by 2028. The strategy addresses setting targets, special measures, senior appointments, mission settings, and the enabling environment and organizational culture. A dashboard tracks progress towards gender parity, using the latest gender balance data. 

At a meeting of the Group of Friends of Gender Parity in March 2020 Guterres reported that the UN had reached parity in the Senior Management Group, among Resident Coordinators, and among all full-time senior leaders (Assistant Secretaries-General and Under-Secretaries-General), not including the specialized agencies. He identified several steps that need to be taken next to make further progress, and requested Member States’ support. [UNGA President’s letter] [Message to Group of Friends of Gender Parity, October 2020]