Remarks by the President of the General Assembly?
Mr. Philemon Yang?
at the first meeting of the Advisory Board on Gender Equality, on the theme:?
Accelerating the achievement of women’s economic rights and empowerment: recommendations and promising practices to address the barriers
[As Delivered]
3 March 2025
Excellencies,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the first meeting of the Advisory Board on Gender Equality.
Thank you for accepting my invitation to join the Board and honouring the invitation to participate in this meeting.
Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is one of my key priorities. If we do not close the gender gap, we will not achieve the commitments in the Pact for the Future and the Sustainable Development Goals.
For this reason, I am committed to advancing gender equality, particularly women’s economic empowerment. I am also committed to ?integrating it in all my other priorities for the 79th session and the work of the General Assembly as a whole.
To do so, I will be relying on your advice on ways to rally more support to achieve gender equality, by leveraging key moments during my Presidency.
This year, we commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. ?We also mark the twenty fifth anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 on the role of women in peace and security.
We must use these events to advocate for stronger efforts to advance gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, and implementation of the gender related actions in the Pact for the Future.
Since I took office, I have used the occasion of High Level meetings, panels and other events to draw attention to issues of violence against women, barriers facing women and girls in science and the need to accelerate progress towards gender equality.
I have appointed Jordan and Monaco as co-facilitators to lead discussions on the High-level meeting to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference.
I have strengthened the capacity of my cabinet with the appointment of a Senior Adviser on Gender Equality.
And to further mainstream gender across my priorities, I will organise an informal Palaver Tree dialogue on Women and Peace and Security.
Colleagues,
Focusing on the economic empowerment of women has the potential to impact their enjoyment of other rights.
It is also an area where more cooperation is required.
Women’s contributions to the economy – paid and unpaid – are numerous, but they are more likely to work in insecure, low-wage jobs, and remain disproportionately affected by poverty.
The good news is: if we close the gender gap in employment, we could increase global gross domestic product per capita by nearly 20 percent.
If we tackle the debt crisis head on, we can free up resources to address the systemic barriers preventing women from pursuing economic opportunities. We can make it possible to end poverty in our lifetime.
But we simply must increase the pace of change. ?
With your good counsel, I intend to rally political support for multilateral cooperation and action, bringing – Governments, the private sector, civil society, academia and others – to call for more resources, to scale up best practices and to reach more women.
With that, I thank you again for your time today and invite you to share your views, in a discussion moderated by my Senior Adviser.
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Media Contacts
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More Information and Updates?: Website: ???: ??: ; Weekly Highlights Resolutions of the 79th Session – 蘑菇视频 General Assembly