The International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW ) was a subsidiary of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of pres ...

. It was established upon recommendation of the World Conference on the International Women's Year 1975 in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

through the

ECOSOC The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; french: links=no, Conseil économique et social des Nations unies, ) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, responsible for coordinating the economic and social fields ...

. INSTRAW started operations in 1979. Since 1983 its main offices were located in

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional) , webs ...

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

, with a focus on the advancement of women through research and training. The institute was financed through contributions, which are mostly given by governmental organizations or private donors. In 2011, INSTRAW was merged into

UN Women The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, is a United Nations entity working for gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women advocates for the rights of women and girls, and foc ...

About

INSTRAW worked to improve the

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

and

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

lives of women around the world, improve their opportunities to communicate with one another, support

sustainable Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

and environmentally safe development and provide research and statistics on issues relating to

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...

. INSTRAW also held

seminars A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some par ...

and trainings in various languages in different countries. INSTRAW developed a worldwide online network, the Gender Awareness Information and Networking System (GAINS), to provide information and training on

gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

. Information and resources were available through GAINS via a searchable

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...

History

INSTRAW was created following the

First World Conference on Women World Conference on Women, 1975 was held between 19 June and 2 July 1975 in Mexico City, Mexico. It was the first international conference held by the United Nations to focus solely on women's issues and marked a turning point in policy directives ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

in 1975. In Mexico City, participants decided that it was necessary to have research on issues relating to

in order to make better

policies Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an orga ...

regarding women throughout the world. It was also decided at the conference that INSTRAW would be based in a "

developing country A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...

." It was created with a voluntary budget that relied on contributions, rather than being funded out of the

budget. On May 12, 1976, Resolution 1998 (LX) allowed the

United Nations Economic and Social Council The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; french: links=no, Conseil économique et social des Nations unies, ) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, responsible for coordinating the economic and social fields ...

(ECOSOC) to create INSTRAW. ECOSOC created a plan to develop INSTRAW in phases and mandated that INSTRAW should be in place by 1977. INSTRAW began working on research and training in January of 1980 and was accountable to the president of a board of directors, Delphine Tsanga. The first director of INSTRAW was

Dunja Pastizzi-Ferencic Dunja ( sr-cyr, Дуња) is a Serbo-Croatian feminine given name which is in fact homonymous with the vocabulary word for "quince." It derives from the Russian pet form of the Greek name Evdokia. It is a popular name in Serbia, Croatia, and B ...

, who started in 1981 and continued until 1990. Several countries bid on hosting the

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

for INSTRAW, and for a while, it was going to be located in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

. However, after the Islamic Republic was founded in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, the country withdrew the invitation in January of 1979. Shortly after the withdrawal, it was suggested to locate headquarters in the

. The headquarters for INSTRAW had their grand opening in

in 1983. In the early 1980s, INSTRAW emphasized research and training as their most important priority. By 1985, INSTRAW developed as its main mandate that their research was about "ensuring that constant attention is paid to the integration of women at all levels of development activity." INSTRAW also identified ways to provide training to women at different levels of opportunity. In 1993, there was a proposed merger of INSTRAW and the

United Nations Development Fund for Women The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, french: Fonds de développement des Nations unies pour la femme, ) was established in December 1976 originally as the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women in the Internationa ...

(UNIFEM).

Boutros Boutros-Ghali Boutros Boutros-Ghali (; , ar, بطرس بطرس غالي ', ; 14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian politician and diplomat who served as the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from 1992 to 1996. An academic ...

proposed the merger as a way to streamline the activities and improve efficiency in the organizations. Committees overseeing the proposed merger decided that both INSTRAW and UNIFEM would suffer and individuals at the Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995 supported the different mandates of each separate organization. Later, further evaluations of the organization also found that keeping INSTRAW independent was important, as it was the only part of the UN that was mandated to provide research and training for women. The

Latin American and Caribbean Group The Group of Latin America and Caribbean Countries, or GRULAC, is one of the five United Nations Regional Groups composed of 33 Member States from Central and South America, as well as some islands in the West Indies. Its members compose 17% of a ...

(GRULAC) in 2003 requested a change be made to INSTRAW and the board of trustees was changed into an executive board with officials appointed by

Member States A member state is a state that is a member of an international organization or of a federation or confederation. Since the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) include some members that are not sovereign s ...

. The new director in 2003 was Carmen Moreno. Going through these proposed and actual changes affected the work output of INSTRAW. In 1999, ECOSOC and the board of trustees for INSTRAW were directed to create a new working method for the organization. This led to the creation of the Gender Awareness Information and Networking System (GAINS). GAINS allowed individuals to access information from INSTRAW through the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

. INSTRAW began to work on the migration and development programme in 2005. In 2008, INSTRAW set up a database on information about women, peace and security. In July 2010, the General Assembly created

which would absorb INSTRAW's mandates.

Directors

Directors of the organization are listed in the table below. There was no director during some years and the role was filled out by an acting official.

References

Sources

External links