An interview with UNIFEM's Joanne Sandler

James Morris and Simona Donini on their interview with a UN official passionate about women’s rights and in the executive team of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Joanne is a New Yorker whose travel abroad at age 19 plunged her into the world of feminism. Joanne told us that “I began to see that there was something universal in the way women could not access their rights.” Joanne was in Spain to learn Spanish but happened upon a local grass roots feminist movement, and since that liminal moment Joanne has been completely immersed in the fight for women’s rights.

She eventually returned to the US and studied international administration but with a clear focus that she wanted to work on women’s rights generally. In the late 1970s there were a small number of independent US based women’s organisations that worked on women’s rights, and after studying Joanne interned at one of them, the International Women’s Tribune Centre, which at the time and still is across the road from the UN in New York. Joanne ended up spending nine years at the Tribune working on their mandate to develop information and communication to support women’s organisations all over the world. The first UN world conference on women in 1976 invigorated a global women’s rights movement. New independent women’s NGOs emerged all over the world: in Latin America, Africa, Asia and elsewhere.

In her nine years there Joanne’s focus was on fundraising, training and marketing. After nine years of dedication to working with women’s groups outside of the US, Joanne explained to us that she felt a need to get back in touch with local groups and therefore became a consultant for the next 10 years working with a 50-50 split between work with women’s organisations based in the US and those in other countries.

Now Joanne’s work is overseeing and guiding programming in UNIFEM regions worldwide. She guided the development of UNIFEM’s four-year strategic plan through consultation with the various stakeholders, and now guides the process of tracking, assessing, reporting and reflecting on UNIFEM’s performance on the ground.

There are more than 100 staff at UNIFEM in New York, and UNIFEM has 15 subregional offices with another 40 country programme offices. Joanne explained that UNIFEM was born in 1976 as a response to the calls for such a body from women’s groups, but originally had a 10-year lifespan that aligned with the UN international decade on women’s rights (1976-1985). “It then transformed into an autonomous fund, working closely with UNDP and using UNDP’s operations and administrative systems,” the idea being to use already existing mechanisms. However, as understanding and demand grew exponentially, Joanne told us “a vibrant debate on strengthening the architecture of gender equality has emerged,” which is one factor that is contributing to UNIFEM’s growth.

How do you coordinate with other agencies on gender issues? Do you perhaps advocate that other agencies have gender specialists?

UNIFEM of course advocates strongly for much more expertise. The “Delivering as One pilot initiative” is illustrative of this as UNIFEM reached out to the pilot countries to see what expertise and technical support they could provide and supported them as much as possible. UNIFEM felt that it was important to get involved in the pilots to support efforts to ensure that gender gets the attention it needs. When representatives of the pilot countries met in Vietnam in 2008, they agreed that the strong demand for gender equality support was unmistakably there but that the number of gender specialists was insufficiently low.

In the last few years Angela Merkel (Germany), Portia Simpson-Miller (Jamaica), Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia), Michelle Bachelet (Chile) and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina) were all elected as either the prime minister of president of their countries. Given these increases are there political and cultural effects of women's growing presence in politics? Do Women Make a Difference?

The recently released UNIFEM report, Progress of the World’s Women, discusses this but in response to the question of whether women make a difference Joanne clearly told us that “the imbalance cannot be justified.” “More research is necessary: once women reach a critical mass then more women’s rights issues get put on the agenda.” Joanne gave the exampled of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf the President of Liberia who has spoken out clearly that her priority is to eliminate sexual violence.

At the UNIFEM 08/09 report launch you said “Violence against women is the hidden pandemic. … It is hidden in the estimated US$9.5 billion that criminal networks earn from human trafficking, with the majority of those trafficked women and children.” So far can you see results after UNIFEM launch of the campaign Say no to Violence against Women?

The campaign has lead to important results in the political arena. “When this issue arose in the 1990s the debate was focused mostly on whether this was a public or private issue, not opening up until the world conference on human rights.” UNIFEM is hopeful that through the Secretary-General’s campaign more men’s groups will be standing up for the elimination of all violence against women. The UN Trust fund has grown, which is indicative of the political will and the realisations that “violence against women can destroy countries.”

What advice would you give to young people who want to make a first step into the gender field?

“Of course there are many organisations and teams within departments where interns can get involved, including in policy and strategy development to strengthen the gender architecture. But it’s important also that interns keep a gender perspective in whatever fields they work in, and integrate gender equality in whatever they’re doing. All the teams are there for support and information so as interns move forward they should connect up with those drivers of gender equality. Take training opportunities offered by women’s organisations, big and small, all across the world. Use the web, interactive blogs etc for exchanging information.”

“There is a huge demand for expertise, broadly and specifically, for example, on the gender dimensions of economics, climate change, food security and sexual violence. There’s a huge demand and not enough supply. We need both women and men to be involved.” ■

Joanne Sandler is the Deputy Executive Director for Programmes at UNIFEM in New York.

Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe