[New York, 5 May 2010] The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has asked Member States to put forward names of possible candidates for the post of the Under-Secretary-General who will be the leader of the new UN gender equality entity.

Since the negotiations about the creation of the new gender equality entity started in February, many Member States have been calling for the Secretary-General to start the recruitment process of the Under Secretary General without delay. Other Member States have been saying, that he does not have a mandate to go forward with the nomination before the General Assembly has passed a resolution entitling him to do so.

At the moment it seems that the Secretary General’s office is planning to have a short list of candidates ready by the time the resolution creating the new entity would be passed by the General Assembly. This would mean that the head of the entity could be appointed immediately after the Member States have reached agreement about the details of the entity.

GEAR Campaign is not at the moment endorsing particular candidates, but will monitor the appointment process closely. Last autumn the Campaign developed a recruitment criteria, that were sent to the Secretary-General and that have also been circulated to the UN Member States.

[Read the GEAR Campaign's USG selection criteria]