By: Shannon Kowalski and Jessica Stern
Read in Devex
As the United Nations scrambles to respond to a funding crisis, the secretary-general has proposed the merger of UN Women, the U.N.’s gender equality and women’s empowerment agency, and UNFPA, the U.N.’s sexual and reproductive health agency. For the world’s women and girls, a merger is full of risks.
We are already facing unprecedented backlash against gender equality worldwide: More than a quarter of countries are facing significant danger of regression in core areas of women’s rights, from physical safety to equality under the law. Weakening the U.N.’s capacity to address these issues now would be a major setback.
It’s crucial to remember why these two entities were created. UN Women shapes norms, laws, and policies and coordinates action on gender equality globally, while implementing country-level programs on issues such as women’s economic empowerment, political participation and leadership, and gender-based violence.
It was created in 2010, after the merger of four U.N. mechanisms to address under-resourcing, fragmented approaches to gender equality throughout the U.N. system, and a stubborn lack of progress globally.
The United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, is primarily focused on implementing programs to strengthen access to sexual and reproductive health services, including in humanitarian and conflict settings.
It also responds to changing population dynamics, including aging, migration, and the needs of adolescents. Within this frame, UNFPA works to protect the rights of women and girls to bodily autonomy and to be free from violence and harmful practices, such as child marriage.
From the outside, it may seem as though a merger could foster greater efficiencies. But the reality is that UN Women and UNFPA have very different mandates. While sexual and reproductive rights are inextricably linked to gender equality, the overlap between the two agencies is limited.
UNFPA works primarily at the national level with ministries of health and planning, demographers, and sexual and reproductive health and rights organizations.
UN Women works at the national, regional, and global levels, with gender ministries and feminist and gender equality organizations.
Bringing the two organizations together would diminish the U.N.’s voice and leadership on gender equality. Instead of having an agency singularly focused on advancing the human rights of women and girls, gender equality would become just one of many important priorities for a merged entity.
Significantly, it is unlikely that a merged entity would attract more resources. If one argument for it is efficiency, donors who fund both organizations will likely find it difficult to maintain their existing support, let alone increase it.
As donor governments slash their development budgets and look for places to scale back, funding for both gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights is already declining precipitously. A merger risks accelerating, not reversing, that trend.
While gender equality is the specific focus of UN Women, all U.N. entities are supposed to advance women’s and girls’ rights within their respective mandates. After all, this is what is needed to drive real change.
After a comprehensive review of the U.N.’s gender equality work in 2023, the secretary-general launched a Gender Equality Acceleration Plan to strengthen U.N. investments and coordination.
Yet, only 36% of UN entities have met their own gender equality funding benchmarks, and less than 25% of country-level frameworks include gender equality programs. The lack of progress on these commitments is not likely to be addressed through a merger: That requires political leadership and accountability. Instead, a merger will further silo the U.N.’s work on gender equality by placing responsibility within one agency.
A merger proposal would require a vote by U.N. member states in the General Assembly. Proponents claim that the mandates of the organizations would remain intact, but there is no way to control what would happen during negotiations or predict the outcome of a vote.
During negotiations on the outcome of this week’s U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, the U.S. and others opposed language about marginalized women and girls, actions to address inequality, references to gender and human rights mechanisms, mentions of responsible technology and artificial intelligence, and even the right to privacy.
This follows the U.S. government radically expanding the Global Gag Rule, defunding UNFPA, stripping protections for LGBTQ+ people, and threatening to burn taxpayer-funded contraceptives.
It is likely that the U.S. administration and other anti-rights groups would seize upon the merger as an opportunity to dismantle this agenda at the U.N. entirely. In 2026, we underestimate the opponents of gender equality at our own peril.
There is a lot that could be done to increase the U.N.’s impact for women and girls in all their diversity. Starting with efforts for joint planning and budgeting to increase coordination and impact among U.N. agencies on issues where there are overlaps, such as on women’s and girls’ economic empowerment, where UN Women, UNICEF, UNDP, and the International Labour Organization all play a role.
Including gender equality organizations in the executive board of UN Women would increase their engagement in governance and decision-making.
The status quo is not tenable for anyone. And yet, instead of exploring every option, the leaders of the UN80 Initiative are only offering the option of a merger that women’s rights and gender equality organizations did not ask for and do not want.
The U.N. must evolve to meet the moment and more effectively deliver on its mandates. But UN Women and UNFPA, and progress for the world’s women and girls, should not be the sacrificial lamb at the altar of the U.N.’s latest reform initiative. The secretary-general must stop this proposal before it’s too late.
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