“Bigger than BlackRock: Challenging UN Corporate Partnerships”

Feminist economic justice must outweigh investment profits for UN Women

On 23 August 2022, the feminists behind #BlockBlackRock met with UN Women representatives to express concerns about the announced partnership with the world’s largest investment firm, BlackRock, and with the broader approach to corporate partnerships.

During this meeting, Lopa Banerjee, Director of the Civil Society Division at UN Women, and other UN Women representatives stated that they heard the concerns and have terminated the partnership with BlackRock. Previous to this meeting, both UN Women Deputy Directors met with members of the Economic Justice and Rights Action Coalition in response to their letter on the BlackRock MoU, which asked for the MoU to be made public. The UN Women Executive Director, who has been in her role for one year, has not met with civil society or media on this matter.

This decision was triggered by a series of actions organised by a collective of feminists and allies from other social movements under the auspices of #BlockBlackRock, who sent UN Women a public letter signed by over 700 women’s rights organisations, feminist activists and allies. The collective also organised an online public event that put into broader context why UN Women needs to rethink its approach to corporate partnerships and to achieving economic justice for women.

As the feminists who created the #BlockBlackRock campaign, we are relieved that the partnership with Blackrock has ended. It was antithetical to the collective pursuit of women’s rights and gender equality for UN Women to be in partnership with a trillion-dollar company known for prioritising profits over human rights – and which supports investments in major contributors to the climate crisis.

While we celebrate this win, our fight is not over. Read more here.

Ed.--BlackRock, Inc. is a USA-based American multi-national investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed-income institutional-asset manager. BlackRock is the world`s largest asset manager, including formerly affordable housing. It manages US$10 trillion in assets as of January 2022.

Photo: Campaigners call on UN Women to pull out of BlackRock partnership. Source: The Guardian.