Madame Executive Director,
Madame President,
Excellencies, colleagues,
2018 marks the final and 6th year of the UAE’s term on the Executive Board. Having served as a Member, Vice-President, and President of the Board during this time, the UAE stands firm in its commitment to UN-Women as the UN’s leading agency dedicated to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment.
It is here in New York – through the work of the Executive Board – where operational policy guidance for UN-Women is crafted. The UAE remains committed to actively contributing to this process as a Member of the Board. During the UAE’s Presidency in 2017, we saw the adoption of the Strategic Plan and Integrated Budget; the institutionalization of an annual UN-Women field visit; and strong coordination across our fellow Boards to drive progress as the UN reform process continues.
I am confident that under the leadership of the current President, Ambassador Ivana Pajevic of Montenegro, and her fellow Bureau Members from Panama, the Republic of Korea, and the Republic of Zambia, that 2018 will be a very successful year for the Board. The UAE looks forward to working together with Member States on the Executive Board’s ambitious workplan for 2018 that was adopted earlier this morning.
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UN-Women is an entity whose leading objectives – achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women – remain key values that underpin the foundation and continued development of the UAE.
The UAE model hinges on the empowerment of women. We know that our country will only succeed if the entirety of our population is empowered to contribute to all aspects of society. This is why the UAE has been a key partner of UN-Women since its inception in 2010.
The strong partnership between the UAE and UN-Women culminated in the launch of a UN-Women Liaison Office in Abu Dhabi in 2016 under the patronage of our First Lady, Her Highness Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, Chairwoman of the General Women’s Union and Mother of the Nation. This is the first office of its kind in our region. Through this office, we hope to strengthen UN-Women’s work in accelerating efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment.
The UAE will continue to play its part in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment both at home and abroad. We will continue to champion this agenda because it is our national strategy, because it is smart foreign policy, and because it is the cornerstone of a more sustainable global economic model.