The Government of Finland commits to strengthen resilience and empowerment of women and girls in Nepal

Kathmandu, Nepal — The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and UN Women Nepal have agreed to implement a programme supporting the Government of Nepal’s commitments to advance women’s economic empowerment; women’s engagement in peace and security and humanitarian action; and policies on gender equality.

Photo: UN Women Nepal

The agreement for supporting the implementation of “Advancing Resilience and Empowerment of Women and Girls (ARE)” was signed on 28 December 2016 by Mr. Jukka Ilomäki, Counsellor/Chargé d'Affaires, Embassy of Finland and Ms. Wenny Kusuma, Representative, UN Women Nepal.

Under the terms of the agreement, Government of Finland will support the ARE programme through a grant worth EUR 400,000 over the period 2017.

Ms Wenny Kusuma, Representative, UN Women Nepal said, “UN Women looks forward to continuing its partnership with the Government of Finland to promote the resilience of women by integrating good governance and conflict prevention, and supporting the Nepal government in the Phase II of the implementation of the National Action Plan on United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 on women, peace and security.” She added, “The project will directly contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda and the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals in Nepal.”

Mr Jukka Ilomäki, Chargé d'Affaires, Embassy of Finland, noted “The work that the Finnish Government supports in Nepal has a human rights based approach. Supporting improved economic and political participation for women and people in vulnerable situations will be one of the key impact areas in the upcoming Country Strategy for Nepal (2017-2019). In this regard, we believe that our continued cooperation with UN Women will contribute to this area in the coming days. We do hope that the work under ARE programme would yield concrete results that can be understood and appreciated by both the people in Nepal and tax payers in Finland”.

The ARE programme aims to strengthen the capacity of the relevant government agencies, including the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare and the National Reconstruction Authority, to enhance women’s safety and deliver gender-responsive action, as well as socially and economically empower women and girls, especially young women and out-of-school adolescent girls from conflict-affected families in Rautahat and Sarlahi districts, to participate in, lead and benefit from peacebuilding, humanitarian efforts and development.

The programme adopts a human rights based approach to development, founded on the understanding that strengthening gender equality in peace, security and humanitarian action is fundamental to advance development in Nepal.