PRESS CONFERENCE BY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UN DEVELOPMENT FUND FOR WOMEN

While significant progress had been achieved in building a positive environment for gender quality and women’s empowerment worldwide, it was also important to consider the impact of the new laws and policies on the day-to-day lives of women, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press conference today.

Speaking to the press on International Women’s day, Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), said that it should be a time of both celebration and reflection.

Among the positive developments, she listed the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women by 181 countries, and the adoption of national plans of action for gender equality by 120 states.  Nations are adopting laws and policies to strengthen women’s access to health, education and employment, and to end impunity for gender-based violence.  However, implementation of those laws was too slow, and poverty still had a woman’s face.  While many more women were entering the workforce, they were also primarily entering a less secure, informal sector of the economy.

There was also an outrage over the fact that the first target of the Millennium Development Goals on gender equality had not been met; by 2005, the world was supposed to have achieved gender parity in primary and secondary education.  “Unless we accelerate progress, there is a fear that the Millennium Development Goals will not be met by 2015”, she said, for it was clear that gender equality was central to the achievement of all development goals, be it to reverse the advancement of HIV/AIDS, get countries out of poverty, or build partnerships for security and human rights.

To bring changes to the lives of women on the ground, women needed to take power into their own hands, she insisted.  Today, it was necessary to promote further change, so that women could achieve larger freedom.  Important developments, in that regard, included the recent election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Africa’s first woman President, in Liberia, and Michelle Bachelet as Chile’s first female President.  Today, there were 41 women ministers in economic decision-making positions all over the world.  However, to move from numbers to influence, from a numerical to a strategic presence in decision-making, it was necessary to show the world how change happened for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

“If we are to make any big change, the issue of gender-equality and women’s empowerment should be treated not just as unfinished business, but also as an under-resourced business,” she concluded.  Therefore, it was necessary to address the investment deficit, in that regard.  There was a need “to follow the money, to make sure that the money was used to empower women at the grass-roots level”.

Responding to a question about the appointment of women at the United Nations, she said that, today, there were more women at D-1 and higher levels, than 10 years ago.  However, the Organization could always do better. In fact, it had to do better, because it was a custodian of the norms and standards.  Unless it set a standard of change, it would be very difficult to encourage such change around the world.

Asked if there was a drive under way to have a woman as a possible candidate for the Secretary-General’s position, she said that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had expressed that hope himself, in his message on the occasion of the International Women’s Day today, saying that the time was ripe for the United Nations to have a female Secretary-General.

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For information media • not an official record