Saraswathi Menon

Saraswathi Menon is the former director of the Policy Division of UN Women and before that director of the UN Development Program's Evaluation Office. Menon is currently a member of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Group of Experts on Review of Peacebuilding Architecture. She has lectured at Madras University in India and has a Ph.D. in sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Saraswathi Menon

Women’s Rights and the UN: A Long History of Ups and Downs

August 10, 2015

by Saraswathi Menon

The 2010 creation of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (or UN Women) represented an unusual organizational consolidation instead of the typical proliferation. It had a promising start under strong leadership but faces serious challenges with growing resistance to gender equality. Support for women’s rights has a long and checkered …