The door to room D-25 declares the facility’s new purpose: Nursing Room.

“This space will allow mothers to breastfeed their children during working hours or express milk,” Javiera Thais Santa Cruz says. “It represents one milestone in UNMIK’s efforts towards gender parity measures and creating a gender-sensitive work environment.”

In April 2018, Zahir Tanin, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) and Head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), endorsed the UNMIK Implementation Plan on Gender Parity and its 23 action points.

Since then, UNMIK has been making many efforts - and much progress - towards achieving gender parity.

“We are the second peacekeeping mission in terms of gender parity. Forty-two per cent of our international staff are women and 40 per cent of our leadership posts are filled by women,” Mr. Tanin points out.

“We have full parity at the D-2, P-4 and P-3 levels and participation of women at senior management meetings has increased from 33 per cent in 2017 to 45 per cent.”

UNMIK has witnessed the development of a new working culture, with respect, tolerance and the participation of all staff at its core.

Outreach activities have encouraged women to apply to job openings. The mission has implemented a mentoring system for staff and provided capacity-building opportunities, such as trainings.

On International Women’s Day in March, the SRSG presented the first annual UNMIK Gender Award for promoting gender parity and the empowerment of women. The Focal Point for Women participates in senior management meetings, has direct and regular access to the SRSG and, at the request of the SRSG, participates in all interview panels.

“Our next steps include the development of an internal survey for UNMIK local and international staff on existing challenges and best practices related to a gender-sensitive workplace,” Thais Santa Cruz says. “This survey will enable us to understand what the priorities of our personnel are and how we can best work towards advancing our efforts in this area.”

In the meantime, building on the organization’s efforts to date, UNMIK strive towards building a workforce where both men and women can thrive.