The Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) campaign was a network of over 300 women's, human rights and social justice groups around the world.

[1] The GEAR campaign urged UN Member States and the UN Secretariat to move swiftly forward to create a new UN gender equality entity.

The United Nations must move without further delay to implement changes that it has repeatedly recognized as critical to fulfilling its mandate of working for gender equality as a crucial component of development, human rights, peace, and security.

[2] In 2006, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan convened a High-Level Panel to explore how the UN system could be strengthened in terms of coherence and coordination in the areas of development, humanitarian affairs and the environment.

The Panel's report included recommendations on strengthening the gender equality architecture (GEA), and was endorsed by the current Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon in March 2007.