UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY: SECOND COMMITTEE
17 October 2011
Agenda 23(b): Eradication of Poverty – Women in Development
Statement by Mr Chris Stokes
Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations
Thank you very much Mr Chairman.
I want to start by thanking the Secretary-General and distinguished colleagues from DESA and UN Women for the three reports being tabled today and for their presentations this morning. The reports together remind us all of some of the major challenges and opportunities ahead of us as we redouble our efforts to eradicate poverty and meet the MDGs.
Mr Chairman I will speak briefly this afternoon specifically in response to the Secretary-General's report on "Integrating a gender perspective into national development strategies". As the report highlighted, making gender equality central to planning and policy dialogue at a national level is absolutely crucial to achieving the empowerment of women and girls, and to addressing persistent areas of gender inequality.
Gender equality makes sense: it is central to economic and human development. The benefits are not just for today's women and men, their families and their communities - they are for all generations that follow.
Helping to promote gender equality and empower women is an overarching principle of Australia's rapidly increasing aid program. Our development objectives include a focus on improving maternal health; helping more girls attend school; and empowering women to further participate in the economy and take on leadership roles.
The Australian Government recently appointed Australia's first Global Ambassador for Women and Girls. Having a dedicated Ambassador will give us a stronger voice in promoting the human and development rights of women and girls around the world.
Mr Chairman
National policy planning processes offer important opportunities to address gender inequality. Australia is proud of its own achievements in this area. As the Secretary-General's report notes, gender-responsive budgeting was pioneered in Australia in the 1980s, and today sets an example of good practice to match resources to goals, build the planning and budgeting capacities of Government agencies and promote accountability in the expenditure of public funds on women and girls.
Achieving true progress in these areas, however, requires accurate and timely sex-disaggregated data to be collected systematically and to be used to guide decision-making at all levels. More must be done internationally in this area. Australia see the UN's Gender Marker as a successful and practical tool in ensuring the different needs of women, girls, boys and men are integrated into humanitarian programming. Over the last year we have seen this directly contribute to a more effective response at the field level. We consider there can be much broader application of the Gender Marker and would encourage UN agencies to explore how this tool can be applied in development programming.
Likewise, it is clear that more can be done by all stakeholders, not least by donors, to ensure a gender perspective is effectively integrated into global development cooperation efforts. Australia looks forward to a range of upcoming international processes, including the Fourth High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan and Rio +20, as key opportunities for us to together make real and sustained development commitments for the world's women and girls.
It is critical too, that the international community live up to the commitments made in Istanbul during the Fourth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries. Despite encouraging progress on women's empowerment in many LDCs, women and girls in these countries remain some of the most vulnerable and the most poor, worldwide. We know what must be done - we have agreed as such in the Istanbul Programme of Action. Now we must act, decisively, and to the full extent of our commitments.
Mr Chairman
Before finishing, allow me to refer briefly to the comments this morning from Assistant-Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, Ms Lakshmi Puri. Australia warmly welcomes the establishment of UN Women as an important step forward for women in the context of development. UN Women's mandate to both lead more effective coordination and coherence across the UN system, and to provide specialised guidance and technical support to national governments, has the potential to deliver real gains for women and girls.
It is absolutely critical that UN Women get the support it needs in its formative years. Collectively, we must help UN Women to grow and prosper. Without sufficient funding, this will not happen. For our part, Australia's core contribution has increased six fold over the past two years, from 1.5 million in 2009 to 9.5 million dollars in 2011. We are now the fifth biggest core contributor to UN Women. Our commitment will continue through our multi-year core funding agreement with UN Women. We strongly urge all donors who have not yet demonstrated an increased financial commitment to UN Women to do so as soon as possible.
Mr Chairman
Gender equality and women's empowerment is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving eradication of poverty, an end to hunger, and a full realisation of human rights. As Australia's aid program continues to double by 2015, women and girls will remain at the forefront of our focus and our commitments.
I thank you.