[New York, 12 June 2009] More details about the way the new UN gender equality entity would look like have now been released. In response to the questions and requests raised by UN Member States when the gender equality reform was discussed in April, the UN Secretariat has released a paper with detailed information about the staffing, organizational structure and funding of the new entity.

The Secretariat estimates that as a composite, the gender equality entity would have a staff of 1049 persons, from whom almost 90% would be working at 5 regional and 50 country offices. Compared to the less than 300 persons who work in the current UN gender equality bodies, this would be a major improvement. The Secretariat also proposes a phased approach to the scaling up of operations, shift from the first to the second and from the second to third phase being subject to a review.

[Read the "Consolidated Response" paper]