What UN Women-UNFPA merger could mean for gender equality

This article is authored by Priya Chaudhary, independent researcher and lawyer, New Delhi.

The proposal to merge UN Women and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), being considered under the UN80 reform process, has been framed in the broader terms of efficiency, coordination, and institutional reform. At first glance, the proposal may appear logical. Both organisations work on issues affecting women and girls, and there is an overlap, particularly on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). But overlap does not mean institutional equivalence. The more fundamental question is what may be lost when two organisations with distinct histories, mandates and ways of working are brought under a single institutional architecture. In particular, what happens to the normative project of women’s rights when it is merged with an institution whose central expertise and operational mandate lie in population, sexual and reproductive health and rights?

UN (REUTERS)

It is not that SRHR is peripheral to women’s rights. The ability to make decisions about one’s body, sexuality and reproduction is fundamental to women’s autonomy and equality. But women’s rights are not just limited to reproductive rights. The concern is that, because SRHR is an area of substantial overlap between the two organisations, the merger could gradually make it a dominant framework through which women’s rights are understood and pursued.

UNFPA emerged from the United Nations’ work on population and development and has developed substantial expertise in sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights, maternal health, demographic change and population-related questions. UN Women, by contrast, was created after a long history of advocacy for a dedicated and stronger institutional architecture for gender equality within the United Nations. Its formation was closely connected to the global mobilisation around the Beijing Platform for Action and the subsequent Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) campaign. The demand was not simply for another organisation working on women’s welfare. It was for an institution capable of advancing women rights by aligning law and policies with global norms, making institutions accountable, and ensuring women’s agency and access to resources. This makes UN Women’s normative role important.

Sexual and reproductive autonomy is inseparable from gender equality. Restrictions on abortion, unequal access to healthcare, forced pregnancy, denial of contraception, child marriage and barriers to reproductive decision-making are all manifestations of gendered power. But gender inequality does not begin or end with the reproductive body.

Women face discrimination in employment, property ownership, inheritance, political representation, education, citizenship, family law, access to justice and participation in public life. Violence against women is connected not only to health outcomes but also to structures of power and impunity. Laws can formally guarantee equality while institutions continue to reproduce discrimination. This is why a normative framework is necessary, one that asks not merely whether women have access to a service, but whether the structures governing their lives treat them as equal rights-bearing citizens.

The question is whether the merger of these two institutions would give equal priority to this work. Institutional priorities are shaped by budgets, organisational structures, leadership, expertise, funding streams and political pressures. When two institutions are merged, areas of overlap are likely to be the easiest to consolidate. In this case, that area is SRHR. There is a danger that the women’s rights agenda could gradually narrow around issues that are most operationally measurable, fundable or institutionally familiar. The normative work of developing standards, strengthening accountability and transforming discriminatory legal and political structures is much harder to measure.

A programme providing reproductive health care can be evaluated through beneficiaries reached, services delivered and health outcomes. The work of challenging discriminatory family laws, transforming political institutions, strengthening women’s representation or confronting structural gender inequality is different. It requires sustained engagement with states and institutions. This is precisely why strong normative institutions matter.

A service-based approach can be transformative. Access to contraception, maternal health care or reproductive services can fundamentally alter women’s lives. But a rights-based approach asks a different set of questions. Who makes the law? Who controls resources? Who participates in political decision-making? Whose interests are reflected in institutions? What happens when the state violates women’s rights? How are discriminatory laws challenged? What mechanisms exist to hold governments accountable? And, most importantly, what social and institutional arrangements make inequality possible in the first place?

These questions cannot be answered solely through the language of health or population. They require an understanding of gender as a structure of power. That was one of the historical reasons for demanding a dedicated institutional architecture for gender equality in the first place. The consultation recalled how civil society mobilisation around Beijing and the GEAR campaign sought to ensure that gender equality remained a central institutional concern rather than being reduced to sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The merger is being considered in the context of financial constraints. Efficiency and institutional coordination are legitimate concerns. The UN cannot ignore questions of duplication, administrative costs or resource allocation. But efficiency cannot be measured simply by continuing the number of institutions. Sometimes institutional differentiation exists for a reason. A smaller number of institutions is not necessarily a stronger rights architecture. Indeed, there is a paradox here. If the objective of reform is to strengthen the UN’s ability to advance gender equality, weakening the institutional space specifically dedicated to gender equality may undermine the very objective the reform claims to pursue.

There is also a question about whether a merger would necessarily produce financial savings, given the costs involved in restructuring two large organisations with existing regional and country-level operations. More concerning is if the institutional priorities of the larger organisation could become dominant in a merged structure. The question, then, should not simply be: Can these organisations be merged? It should be: What institutional capacity for women’s rights will exist after the merger that does not exist before it?

International institutions do not operate in a political vacuum. The normative language of gender equality has itself been shaped by decades of struggle, negotiation and mobilisation across regions. For countries in the Global South, international gender norms have often provided important tools for domestic movements challenging discriminatory laws and institutions. International standards can be invoked by courts, legislators, activists and civil society organisations to demand reform at home.

The weakening of an independent normative institution could, therefore, have consequences beyond the UN system itself. If gender equality becomes institutionally secondary, its ability to influence national legal and policy frameworks may also diminish. This is particularly important at a time when women’s autonomy and gender equality are facing political and ideological backlash across different parts of the world. It’s also concerning regarding the conservative and right-wing political forces seeking to restrict women’s autonomy and narrow the understanding of women’s rights across the world. At such a moment, the international institutional architecture for gender equality should arguably become stronger, not less distinct.

The question is not simply whether the UN Women-UNFPA merger should happen. The important question is, what must be protected if institutional restructuring does take place? A new structure must preserve UN Women normative mandate rather than assume that it will survive unchanged within a broader operational framework.

Clear institutional guarantees are needed to ensure that gender equality remains a central priority; normative work is adequately funded; women’s rights expertise and accountability mechanisms are preserved; and civil society, especially from the Global South, helps shape the new architecture. Without these safeguards, sexual and reproductive health and rights, the most visible area of overlap, could become the merger’s centre of gravity.

The debate is about more than administrative restructuring. It concerns how the international community understands women’s rights. While sexual and reproductive health and rights are central, they are not exhaustive. Women’s rights also require action on discrimination, unequal power, patriarchal institutions, political exclusion and discriminatory laws. This broader project of substantive equality depends on strong normative work, state accountability and sustained structural transformation.

The risk is not that reproductive rights will receive too much attention, but that other dimensions of equality will receive too little. What is at stake is whether the UN continues to recognise women as equal rights-holders, not merely populations to be served, and preserves an independent, adequately resourced normative institution to advance their rights.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Priya Chaudhary, independent researcher and lawyer, New Delhi.