Agency Overview
A. Executive
Summary: The State Department is firmly committed to promoting
women’s empowerment and human rights around the world. The Department’s
main office for coordinating its policy and programs on issues affecting
women and girls is the Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI). S/GWI
works with bureaus and offices within the Department and across the U.S.
government to ensure that programs and initiatives related to combating
violence against women and girls and for women’s political, economic,
and social empowerment are efficiently and effectively deployed. In the
multilateral sphere, S/GWI works with the U.S. Mission to the United
Nations (USUN) to advance women’s rights, freedoms, and opportunities.
Within
the Department, S/GWI and USUN work with the Bureau of Democracy, Human
Rights, and Labor (DRL), Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration
(PRM), Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO), and Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP), as well as with the
regional bureaus and the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public
Affairs (R). Other key foreign affairs partners from both within and
outside the Department include the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID); the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
(PEPFAR); the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC); and the Middle
East Partnership Initiative (MEPI, through the State Department).
S/GWI
and USUN’s approach to women’s issues stems from the fundamental
principle, expressed during the 1995 Beijing UN World Conference, that
women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights. As
part of our mandate to help women and girls around the world reach their
full potential, we work for their political and economic inclusion, for
equal access to quality education and healthcare, and freeing women
from the threat of violence. To achieve these goal, we (1) integrate and
mainstream women’s issues into U.S. foreign policy decisions and State
Department practices; (2) create programs and partnerships, bilaterally
and multilaterally, to protect and empower women; (3) work to expand
legal reforms and strengthen the international framework for protection
of women’s rights; and (4) engage in sustained and comprehensive public
outreach and public diplomacy.
B. Programs Which
Improve the Lives of the Federal Workforce: A division within the
Department’s Human Resources Bureau, Work/Life Programs (HR/ER/WLP),
operates as the central coordinating authority on work/life issues. Its
policies and programs apply to all personnel serving at the State
Department, USUN, and overseas missions and posts. The WLP Division runs
dependent care programs, including the Childcare Subsidy Program, an
Eldercare Support group and emergency visitation travel for officers
posted overseas; manages the Department’s policy on reasonable
accommodation services, offers various health, life, and long-term care
insurance, and manages a program called IQ: Information Quest.
IQ:Information
Quest is the Department’s program name for LifeCare, a confidential
resource and referral service. Since May 2000, the Department has
contracted with Federal Occupational Health (FOH) to offer IQ at
no cost to all Department employees, (full-time, part-time, permanent or
temporary), overseas Family Member Appointees, and their family
members. IQ provides lunchtime informational sessions, monthly
e-newsletters, and referrals for child or elder care, personal
health/wellness, legal, and financial counseling specialists, as well as
educational materials. The usage rate for State Department employees
runs slightly higher than average among Federal agencies and within the
Department, more women than men request personalized services (63% in Q3
FY2008). During the same timeframe, the categories most requested by
women in descending order were: Special Needs (100%), Academics (86%),
Moving and Relocation (75%) Financial (70%), Prenatal (67%), Health and
Wellness (62%), Childcare (60%), Legal (58%), Adult Care (56%), and
Convenience and Community Resources (50%).
Since the beginning
of the Eldercare Emergency Visitation Travel (EVT) Program in January
2001, over 1600 overseas employees or spouses have traveled to assist an
elderly parent who has suffered a recent decline in physical, mental or
emotional health and who was in need of their adult child’s assistance.
Other categories of EVT exist for overseas employees facing emergencies
such as Medical EVT (when a parent is facing imminent death), Death EVT
(when a parent or sibling dies); Unusual Personal Hardship EVT,
(self-explanatory), and Unaccompanied Post EVT (which provides travel
for immediate family members, domestic partners or agents when an
employee at an unaccompanied post is critically wounded or falls
critically ill).
Another division within the Human Resources
bureau, Employee Programs (HR/ER/EP), administers and develops policy
for leave programs including the Family Medical Leave Act and the
Family-Friendly Leave Act. The EP Division administers and develops
policies for flexible workplace programs including telework, alternate
work schedules, job-sharing and part-time work schedules. Telework is
currently an option on either a “core” basis, at least one day a week,
or irregularly on a “situational” basis, for all employees who meet
eligibility requirements and can obtain supervisor approval. Almost 1200
Department employees are participating in the Telework Program, on a
core or situational basis.
The Department also contains an Office
of Medical Services (MED), which has as its stated goal “to safeguard
and promote the health and well-being of America’s global diplomatic
community. The Employee Consultation Service (ECS), within MED, assists
Foreign Service and Civil Service employees, who may contact the ECS
staff for private and confidential discussions on concerns of an
individual, couple/marital, family, or workplace nature. For Foreign
Service employees, ECS offers consultation and support to families with
children who have special educational needs which includes coordination
of the post approval and medical clearance recommendation process;
administrative review and assistance with compassionate curtailments,
breaks and extensions of service.
The Department established the
Family Liaison Office (FLO) in 1978 to improve the quality of life for
Foreign Service families serving abroad through identifying issues,
advocating for solutions, providing client services, and managing the
worldwide Community Liaison Office (CLO) program. The CLO works at posts
overseas to maintain high morale through orientation activities,
cultural and recreational programs, dissemination of information,
counseling and referral, and assistance with security, education, and
employment for family members. FLO manages the program worldwide,
providing training, program and staffing guidance, resources, and
advocacy.
C. Programs Which Improve the Lives of Women
and Girls Around the World: Within the State Department, the Office
of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI) is the lead office charged with
advancing programs and policies affecting women and girls. Collaborating
with USUN’s work through multilateral mechanisms, we focus on (1)
advancing women’s human rights and equality (2) preventing and combating
violence against women (3) fostering political participation, (4)
promoting economic empowerment, (5) increasing access to healthcare, (6)
improving education access and quality, (7) building leadership
capacity, and (8) emphasizing the gender dimension – women’s particular
vulnerabilities but also their unique positioning to contribute to
solutions – in foreign policy challenges such as food security and
climate change.
1. Human Rights and Equality
S/GWI and
USUN are key advocates for U.S. ratification of the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Ambassador Rice has said that ratification of CEDAW is an “important
priority” for the Administration and that it is “past time” for the
treaty to be ratified. USUN and S/GWI provide leadership and support to
the U.S. delegation to the annual Commission on the Status of Women, the
premier multilateral normative body for advancing women’s empowerment.
USUN and S/GWI also play a leading role in supporting, within the UN
system, the realization of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #3, to
promote gender equality and empower women.
In partnership with
the broader State Department, USUN and S/GWI also play an active role in
developing and implementing the U.S. strategy for the Human Rights
Council. The USG is committed to strengthening UN mechanisms to advance
the rights, protection, and empowerment of women, including the UN
Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. With the Administration’s
successful election to the Human Rights Council this year, we will be
able to work from within for a more effective Council.
USUN, in
collaboration with S/GWI, is actively engaged in intergovernmental
negotiations to streamline and strengthen the UN’s gender architecture.
The UN currently has four separate offices (UNIFEM, DAW, OSAGI, and
INSTRAW) that focus on aspects of women’s issues, and there is poor
coordination among them and no common line of authority. USUN leadership
in coordinating support for more effective gender architecture is
helping advance women’s human rights and equality.
Additionally,
USUN is a leading voice in support of increasing the number of women
serving in posts in the UN system, including in UN peacekeeping
missions. Currently, women comprise about 37 percent of all posts in the
UN Secretariat, and about 26 percent of the top tier professional posts
(director level and higher). In the civilian sector of peacekeeping
missions, some 24 percent are women. USUN engages with the UN
Secretariat, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and other member
states to increase the number of women across the UN, and especially at
the professional and higher categories.
Finally, USUN and S/GWI
support the work of the United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM), which works to support women’s empowerment and gender equality
worldwide. For Fiscal Year 2010, the Administration requested $1.5
million to support UNIFEM’s activities.
2. Violence
Addressing and preventing violence against women is a priority,
because no program designed to increase women’s participation in civic
life will fully succeed as long as women are subject to domestic
violence, so-called “honor killings,” child marriage, rape, human
trafficking, and other forms of assault and abuse. Preventing violence
against women requires strategies that incorporate legal, educational,
health, and infrastructural reforms. Women in regions affected by
conflict are particularly vulnerable, and require special and urgent
attention. We believe it is essential to pursue a multi-sectoral
approach with the cooperation of strong partners, including NGOs,
multilateral organizations, and private groups that are well-positioned
to advocate for reform, the protection of victims, the prevention of
violence, and the prosecution of perpetrators. We also believe that
women’s unequal status around the world is the root cause of the
different manifestations of gender-based violence, as well as its
endemic nature. We are currently working with the Secretary’s Policy
Planning Staff to develop a comprehensive strategy within the State
Department for tackling all forms of violence against women and girls,
regardless of where and how it occurs, in a way that recognizes that
long-term solutions to violence require, fundamentally, redressing the
power imbalance and enhancing the rights and respect due to women as
human beings.
S/GWI and USUN work closely with the Department’s
Trafficking in Persons Office to support countries that have passed
legislation aimed at preventing violence against women, and to support
the efforts of the UN’s Office of Drugs and Crime, the lead UN agency
working to address and prevent human trafficking . Many countries have
enacted forward-looking laws supporting women’s rights but have poor
records on implementation and enforcement. S/GWI aims to help NGOs and
their partners develop the capacity to ensure these good intentions are
realized into action, including measures to support judicial training,
public awareness programs in rural areas, and grassroots
capacity-building.
Leadership by – and at – the UN is key to
fostering the progressive actions of countries that have taken initial
steps to address gender-based violence, as well as to demonstrating the
economic, political, and social costs of inaction to those that have
not. In 2006, the United States negotiated and actively supported UNGA
resolution 61/143 on intensifying efforts to eliminate violence against
women, and remains active in the subsequent UN working group on this
issue. USUN and S/GWI are working together to advance the priorities
outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and
security, which addresses the disproportionate impact of armed conflict
on women and promotes increased roles for women in conflict prevention
and resolution, peace-making, and peace-building. USUN engages with the
UN Secretariat and key member states to make the provisions in UNSCR
1325 real and tangible to women all over the world.
Another key
priority of S/GWI and USUN is the implementation of the landmark
Security Council Resolution 1820 on sexual violence against women in
conflict situations. Negotiations on the one-year follow-up to UNSC 1820
are expected to take place in late summer 2009. USUN and S/GWI will
lead interagency efforts to build upon our efforts to prevent of acts of
sexual violence, identify and punish perpetrators, and enhance UN
attention and action to address this humanitarian crisis.
3.
Political Participation
In many regions of the world,
women still lack a political voice and a seat at the decision-making
table. The United States has sponsored initiatives to advance the
political participation of women and to promote democracy around the
globe. These efforts have included support for UN General Assembly
Resolution 58/142 on “Women and Political Participation,” as well as
programs such as the Iraqi Women’s Democracy Initiative (IWDI), and
others in Afghanistan aimed at increasing women’s political
participation.
S/GWI coordinates with State’s Bureau for Near
Eastern Affairs (NEA) on the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI),
which focuses on women’s empowerment, and particularly on civil society
and political training programs, women’s economic leadership, and legal
rights. These programs in this region are crucial, particularly as we
ensure that the ideas the President introduced in his speech in Cairo
are brought to fruition. We continue to work with the U.S.-Afghan
Women’s Council, now based at Georgetown University, in order to promote
the economic, social, and political rights of women in Afghanistan.
With the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP), we
work on additional programs that focus on enhancing rule of law,
building judicial capacity, and providing training to female emerging
leaders and women’s advocates.
The United States was a leader in
the creation, and continues to be a supporter, of the UN Democracy Fund,
which supports projects to strengthen civil society and encourage
democratic participation for all. Since its creation in 2005, the UN
Democracy Fund has contributed to a number of projects focused on
increasing the ability of women to play leading roles in the democratic
process and strengthening women’s participation in governance and
political decision making in Nigeria, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Sudan, Uganda, Ecuador, Nepal and Morocco. USUN and
S/GWI support the Administration’s Fiscal year 2010 request for the UN
Democracy Fund of $14 million.
4. Economic Empowerment
Women’s
ability to participate in the economic sphere of their community and
nation provides a foundation for progress in other areas. Investing in
women also represents “smart development” and offers a cost-effective
way to stimulate global economic recovery. Mentoring partnerships,
whether in person or over the internet, between U.S. businesspeople and
women around the world are vital. In India and elsewhere, we are working
to increase the role of the local business community in mentoring and
extending economic opportunities to women. MEPI has an impressive
program working with women’s business associations across many countries
in the predominantly Muslim world. This is a model that can potentially
be scaled up. Moreover, through public-private partnerships and the
leveraging of existing initiatives, we can promote and expand programs
like Goldman Sachs’ “10,000 Women” initiative, which provides women with
business and management training. We will also continue to work with
the Fortune All Powerful Women’s Summit on mentoring partnerships within
the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
Access to
microcredit, and other tools such as training, is critically important
for countries in which economic growth is hampered because of the lack
of women’s participation in the workforce, or where the aftermath of the
global economic crisis or conflict and warfare has disproportionately
affected women. S/GWI is working with organizations such as the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and with regional initiatives
such as Pathways to Prosperity, to nurture women’s microbusinesses
around the world, help grow their small and medium enterprises (SMEs),
and promote their economic success.
Multilaterally, USUN and
S/GWI support progress toward UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #1,
to halve the number of people in the world living on an income of less
than one dollar per day. As women comprise a disproportionate percentage
of the world’s poor, economic empowerment of women is key to achieving
this goal. The United States is also a key supporter of the United
Nations Development Program, for which promoting women’s equality and
economic empowerment is a key pillar. The UNDP works to expand
employment opportunities for women, improve access to finance, property
and land rights, and to include women in economic decision-making. The
Administration requested $75 million to fund UNDP in FY 2010.
5.
Access to Healthcare
The state of women’s health around the
world is dire, particularly in the developing world. Every minute of
every day, a woman dies from complications – most of which are
preventable – related to pregnancy and childbirth, and others suffer
from the long-term debilitating consequences of unattended difficult
births, such as fistula. Too many women lack access to family planning.
As one of his first official acts, President Obama repealed the
so-called Mexico City Policy, which prohibited NGOs working abroad from
using U.S. funding to provide – or to offer counseling about – the full
range of available family planning options. One of this Administration’s
top priorities is empowering women to gain access to the health
information and services they need to maintain their own well-being and
the health of their families. Another early act of the Administration
was to restore U.S. financial support ($50 million ) to the U.N.
Population Fund, which promotes reproductive health and safe motherhood.
S/GWI
is coordinating the women’s health portions of the President’s
recently-announced Global Health Initiative, which provides funds to
combat the high rate of maternal and child mortality and prevent
millions of new HIV infections, among other goals. Within the State
Department, we are ensuring that this initiative is implemented in a way
that prioritizes women’s health and focuses on women’s healthcare as an
entry point into integrated, family-centered care. We will continue to
work with partners at State and other agencies to ensure this new
initiative will target countries with the highest maternal and child
mortality rates. We are also exploring ways to scale up existing health
infrastructure to incorporate maternal and reproductive health care
services into existing programs.
In addition to our work on the
President’s Global Health Initiative, we are collaborating with other
bureaus and NGO partners to pursue improvements on a full range of
global women’s health needs, including mental health, breast cancer, and
other frequently neglected areas.
Work at both S/GWI and USUN
fosters a multi-sectoral approach to health care and explores the ways
in which the overall status of women and girls in society affects their
physical and emotional health, and examines the links among women’s
health and access to education, economic empowerment, and the legal
status of women.
All of these efforts by USUN and S/GWI support
the achievement of UN Millennium Development Goal #5, to improve
maternal health, which aims to establish a 75 percent reduction in
maternal mortality by 2015.
6. Education Access and Quality
Education,
especially for girls and women, is the most powerful tool available for
the developing world. It is a key driver of economic growth. According
to the World Bank, educating women increases their wages by as much 20
percent for every additional year of schooling. Education also results
in gains in women’s agricultural productivity and helps ensure food
security. Despite the high-yield returns that come from educating girls,
more than half the countries in the Arab world, in South and West Asia,
and in Sub-Saharan Africa have yet to achieve gender parity in
education. Two-thirds of the world’s unschooled are girls, and girls and
women significantly lag behind boys and men in basic literacy and
numeracy.
We are working with USAID and other partners to focus
on fundamental investments in girls’ and women’s education. President
Obama has pledged to create a Global Fund for Education and to invest $2
billion in order to “erase the global primary education gap by 2015.”
We are formulating programs that will not only ensure girls’ equal
access to educational opportunities, but also the teaching of equality,
and are working with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
(ECA) to bring in experts who can “train the trainers” on identifying
and eradicating bias – subtle and otherwise – in the classroom. We are
working with other offices and bureaus in increasing girls’ access to,
and training in, science and technology, making sure they have the tools
to excel in the information economy. Specifically, we plan to support
and expand MEPI’s “Women in Technology” program, which leverages a
public/private partnership with Microsoft to provide business and
technology training in nine countries to disadvantaged women and girls
throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
The United States is
the largest donor to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, with a
Fiscal Year 2010 request of $128 million. UNICEF leads the UN Girls’
Education Initiative, to “transcend barriers to girls’ education and
narrow the gender gap in primary and secondary education,” a mission
that USUN and S/GWI strongly support.
7. Building leadership
capacity
It is crucial to provide women with the means to
develop their leadership skills in a way that is targeted to their areas
of engagement, whether in politics or business development or NGO
effectiveness. We are investigating the feasibility of holding a Women’s
Leadership Summit in the Middle East, sponsored by the United States
and local partners, to advance women’s progress through practical
workshops. This Summit would bring in international experts to work with
women who are in political, business, or NGO leadership roles, to help
them ensure their effectiveness in these top positions and further their
roles as democracy-builders. We are also partnering on a Women’s
Leadership Summit for Asia, as the Secretary announced during her recent
visit to India.
8. Emphasizing the Gender Dimension
S/GWI
not only leads the coordination of existing programs and policies on
women’s issues, but, in collaboration with USUN, also works to ensure
that women’s needs are addressed bilaterally and multilaterally within
topics not traditionally considered to be part of “women’s issues.” For
example, food security has an important gender dimension: in rural parts
of Africa, 60 to 80 percent of small-scale farmers are women. But the
role that women play – and could play – in ensuring the stability
of the global food supply is often overlooked. S/GWI is addressing this
problem in our coordination of the White House Food Security
Initiative. Similarly, global climate change has a disproportionate
impact on women, due to women’s greater representation among the world’s
poor, lack of access to resources including information and training,
and lack of equal legal protection. Women are, however,
under-represented among decision-makers crafting policy on how to
respond to climate challenges.
We are working throughout the
Department, and with our partners in the UN system, to ensure the
inclusion of women’s needs and perspectives on these issues, as well as
on every issue in which there is a distinct gender dimension or in which
a potentially disparate impact on women mandates a focus on their
particular roles.
Other offices with which we coordinate include:
Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor (DRL). DRL addresses women’s issues through
their annual Human Rights Reports. DRL also supports programming on
topics including gender-based violence, women’s economic empowerment,
and reintegration of former female child soldiers. DRL grantees also
implement political party training, political and civic participation,
and media training programs that are tailored and targeted specifically
towards women.
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons (G/TIP). G/TIP coordinates submissions for the Department’s
annual country rankings and report on all forms of trafficking, from
indentured servitude to the sexual exploitation of women and girls, who
comprise the majority of victims of trafficking. They also advocate for,
and administer, programs on (1) prevention through the development of
economic alternatives for women, (2) protection of, and assistance to,
trafficked victims, and (3) prosecution of the traffickers.
The
Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). PRM supplies
funding and expertise to UNHCR, the International Committee of the Red
Cross, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and directly to NGOs
for multi-sectoral programs on refugees, migration, and health that
usually have a significant women’s issues component.
The
Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO). IO pursues,
through multilateral diplomacy, human rights and humanitarian issues,
including the advancement of women’s rights through rule of law.
The
Economic Bureau (EB). EB includes in its jurisdiction the
advancement of women in business and also advocates for women’s
increased access to credit and economic empowerment.
The
Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R), and its Bureau
of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). ECA has international
programs in place that bring over emerging female leaders for training
and high-level meetings. The Bureau also sends out U.S. speakers to
embassies and consulates on topics that include women’s rights and civic
and political participation, and girls’ education.
The regional
offices within the Department – Africa (AF), East Asia/Pacific
(EAP), European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR), Near Eastern
Affairs (NEA), South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA), and Western
Hemisphere Affairs (WHA). These offices also include women’s issues
as part of their missions to cover the totality of their geographic
area, and often support embassy-based programs for women’s empowerment.
D.
Overarching Recommendations:
S/GWI is working to
establish a Global Women’s Leadership Fund, which would combine the
expertise of the private sector with the broad reach of the public
sector in partnerships for women’s empowerment programs and projects
around the world. We are also seeking resources for a Rapid Response
component to the Fund, which would enable us to swiftly and effectively
address the most urgent needs of women and girls in countries
experiencing conflict or facing other types of immediate threats and
challenges.
Multilaterally, USUN and S/GWI are working to:
- Achieve an effective and tangible follow-up Resolution
to Security Council Resolution 1820 during discussions in the Security
Council in fall 2009.
- Pursue the successful implementation of
women’s gender architecture reform in the UN system by the end of 2009.
- Send
CEDAW to Congress for ratification in 2009.
Although S/GWI
and USUN coordinate efforts on these and other goals within the State
Department, potential avenues of further collaboration exist within
agencies such as the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services,
Department of Labor, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland
Security, Small Business Administration, Department of Commerce, Office
of the Trade Representative, and Department of Agriculture. We would
welcome assistance in identifying key overlapping areas of programmatic
focus and in establishing new cooperative interagency relationships.
Civil
Society Meeting in Beijing
