Increase financial support to UN body: India

India has called on the international community to increase its financial support to the United Nations' body dealing with women's empowerment, to help it meet the global commitments of gender equality.

Addressing the annual session of UN Women's executive board on Tuesday, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri said work on gender equality and empowerment of women continues to remain 'chronically underfunded'.

Puri said in order to ensure that UN Women stands for action, the donor community must move beyond the political rhetoric of just stated commitments, and transform them into the much needed monetary support for the organisation.

"We hope that the comprehensive resource mobilisation strategy would help in widening the donor base in order to secure the resources required by UN Women in meeting its global commitments," the Indian envoy said.

India has promised a five million dollar contribution to the core predictable funding of UN Women, which became operational in January 2011.

Of this, it has already contributed two million dollars.

Puri said that India would always be willing to 'walk the extra mile' and continue to provide full political and financial support to UN Women, calling on other nations to do the same.

He reaffirmed India's steadfast commitment to the all round social, economic and political empowerment of women, 'whatever effort and resources the task might take'.

India also extended its support to improve the organisational structure of UN Women to make it more dynamic, decentralised, cohesive and well-connected

as the agency undertakes a regional architecture review of its structure.

Puri said that among the key challenges faced by UN Women in 2011 was the systematic exclusion of women from peace negotiations and their economic exclusion.

"While identification of such critical challenges is important, it may also be worthwhile suggesting approaches to address these challenges in the future strategic plans, so that decision makers are able to factor such approaches during the policy formulation stage itself," he added.

The ambassador lauded the steps taken by UN women to influence policy narratives across the globe, including on issues like women's rights in the new constitution under consideration in Egypt and services for gender based violence survivors in the occupied Palestinian territory.

He also appreciated the work done by UN Women in India and the South Asian region in areas ranging from political participation and leadership, economic empowerment, ending violence against women and gender responsive annual budgeting.

Puri also underlined the 'stellar role' India's all-women 100-member strong peacekeeping unit has played in Liberia since 2007.

The peacekeeping unit, considered the first all-women unit of UN Police in history, has been responsible for the security of the President's office besides providing Liberian children with medication, lessons on using computers and self-defence.

Since the arrival of the Indian all-women peacekeeping unit, there has been a transformative change in women's participation in the security landscape of Liberia, Puri said, adding that applications from women to join the police force has tripled since the troops arrived in 2007.