Executive Director,
Madam President,
Colleagues,
I thank the Permanent Representative of Panama for her statement, as well as the Bureau for their continuous support. I would also like to thank Executive Director Bahous for her continued leadership of the agency and the presentation of her second annual report on the implementation of UN Women’s Strategic Plan for 2022 to 2025, including its midterm review. The UAE fully supports UN Women’s triple mandate.
We are far passed the midpoint of the 2030 agenda, but nowhere near achieving SDG5. We must capitalize on upcoming milestones, like the Summit of the Future and the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, to drive this agenda forward. As such, UN Women’s role in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is critical in this endeavor.
We therefore welcome the Executive Director’s focus on strengthening the agency’s gender-responsive humanitarian capacities. With conflict and crises increasing around the world, so too are humanitarian needs, and especially those of women and girls. This can often be a missing element in the global response to conflict. We believe increased engagement by UN Women in this field can address this gap. It would be helpful to hear more from UN Women about its role and focus within the humanitarian framework.
We must also continue to support UN Women’s operations across numerous sectors and to forge partnerships, including with the private sector. We believe it is therefore important to ensure the agency builds its capacity in various fields so that we can reinforce the intersectional nature of this agenda. For our part, and building on our cooperation for last year’s COP28, UN Women and the UAE will work together to galvanize gender-responsive climate action, including by establishing a flexible and rapid funding mechanism through a Women’s Climate Fund. This can help build climate resilience, support just transitions to green/blue economies, and expand UN Women’s operations in climate action.
In addition, it is equally important to further mainstream this agenda across the UN system. In our view, it is critical that we work towards strengthening UN Women’s already existing coordination mandate, to ensure a more robust approach to advancing the role of women and girls within and across various fields, processes and agendas in the UN system. We would be grateful to hear more from UN Women in that regard.
As Board members, we must maximise the opportunity this annual session provides to support and strengthen the agency’s operations towards our shared goal. In this regard, the Internal Audit Service’s annual report and UN Women’s management response will be helpful to the discussion.
In closing, the UAE remains a committed partner of UN Women and we look forward to a constructive session with fellow Board members in the next two days.
Thank you.