While the majority of the members of the General Assembly and its President have already voiced a preference for a composite body for women, the UN Secretary-General will present a paper including four options to strengthen the U.N.'s gender architecture to the current sessions of the 192 members in order to make a final decision before September 2009.

The four options presented in the paper focus on the following goals:

1. Maintaining the status quo of the U.N. institutions and projects related to women and gender but with increased resources.
2. Creating a fund or program based on voluntary contributions from member states.
3. Creating a new department within the Secretariat.
4. Creating a new hybrid entity, incorporating option two and three.

The GEAR coalition members have stressed that they are looking for a combination of both a department and an agency, not merely a department within the U.N., in order to avoid the current problems and combine the advantages of both structures. Therefore, maintaining the status quo is not a favorable option for coalition member states, mainly because they view the current U.N. gender equality architecture as fragmented and under-resourced.

The GEAR Campaign is expecting the composite entity to be "ambitiously funded," hoping  for a minimum annual budget of one billion dollars from both voluntary and assessed contributions, a combination which would provide a more secure source of funding in addition to a more balanced ownership between both northern and southern countries.

The Secretary-General expressed his own preference recently in a meeting of delegates, mentioning that the composite entity is the best option in order to provide a concrete field presence, eliminate fragmentation, link normative and operational work, and hold all entities accountable for performance.

Compiled from: Deen, Thalif, Global Coalition Backs New U.N. Gender Body, March 30^th, 2009, Inter Press Service – IPS.