Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on the Beijing+30 Review
Opening remarks delivered by Sima Bahous, UN Under-Secretary-General, and UN Women Executive Director, to the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on the Beijing+30 Review from 19 November 2024 at the UN Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand.
Date:
[As delivered]
(... Solutations...)
Our host country, Thailand, is among the global leads in women in business. 24% of CEOs in Thailand are women, compared to 20% worldwide and only 13% in the Asia-Pacific.
13 countries across the region have National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security, as does ASEAN at a regional level, forming an important foundation for prosperity and peace.
Excellencies,
These commendable achievements must be recognized and applauded. Yet, they sit alongside a list of challenges and promises unfulfilled.
Our latest world-wide SDG Snapshot Report tells a clear and stark story: we are racing against time for gender equality and women’s empowerment to become a lived reality for all women and girls, everywhere.
And we are doing so in a global context where the pushback is well-organized, well-funded, threatens women human rights defenders everywhere and undermines the ability of the international community to deliver for women and girls.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed an estimated 47 million into extreme poverty. As so often, women and girls were disproportionately affected. The pandemic further deepened an existing gender gap.
It is estimated that by 2030, South Asia will face a striking disparity of 129 poor women for every 100 poor men, all against the backdrop of escalating climate change-induced disasters.
We also know that women across all sub-regions of Asia and the Pacific face barriers to economic empowerment. Three in five employed women are engaged in informal work with little to no social protection.
In 12 out of 20 Asia-Pacific countries, women make up less than 40% of the STEM workforce limiting their participation in high-growth industries.
The unpaid care burden still constrains women’s economic lives, with women across Asia and the Pacific performing 2.3 times more care work than men, restricting their ability to engage in formal employment.
We are all acutely aware that changes in the environment are already and will continue to be the single greatest threat to the security and well-being of people in the Pacific.
Continued inequalities in women and girls’ access to rights, opportunities, resources, and knowledge places them at greater risk.
Excellencies,
One of the most pressing challenges remains violence against women and girls.
Across the Asia and the Pacific region, one in four women has experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner. Many women continue to lack access to essential services such as shelter, healthcare, and legal protection.
Excellencies,
In response to these challenges, countries across the Pacific and Asia have shown impressive leadership and action, showing once again, that the principles and ambition of the Beijing Platform for Action are no less relevant today than when they were drafted.
Countries such as Tajikistan and Viet Nam have introduced multisectoral services including healthcare, legal, and psychosocial support, and one-stop-shop service centers for survivors. Viet Nam has established three such centers.
Others such as Bangladesh and the Solomon Islands have advanced new efforts on Women’s Resilience to Disasters, ensuring women are leading in their communities and countries in climate change mitigation.
And some such as India and Indonesia continue to advance Temporary Special Measures to tackle the persistent underrepresentation of women in decision-making roles which is a challenge common to so many countries in this region and around the world.
Excellencies,
As we embark on a year of reviewing impact and recommitting to action and to fulfilling the promises in Beijing, UN Women will work with Member States and other stakeholders to advance and scale up high-impact, high return-on-investment priority actions at country level.
Having reviewed the more than 140 national reports submitted globally, and through consultations on priority areas, we have identified six actions that can be transformative, if implemented. They are not exclusive and come alongside all 12 priority areas, but they are identified as our common goalpost – and are derived from your own national reports.
These areas, which constitute our Beijing+30 Action Agenda, hold the potential to reduce poverty, accelerate the economy, to give women voice, choice and safety, and get us all back on track to the Sustainable Development Goals and 2030 agenda.
One, Accelerating parity and equal decision-making in government and state institutions;
Two, Putting women at the heart of inclusive and sustainable economic development approaches and the transition to green economies;
Three, Investments in comprehensive and gender-responsive care systems;
Four, Development, implementation and resourcing of national action plans to end violence against women;
Five, Bridging the digital and technological gender gap; and
Six, Increasing accountability to women and girls in matters of peace, security and humanitarian action.
And, we believe that bringing youth to the heart of these efforts will multiply their impact. So youth continue to be a cross-cutting element of all these six that I have just highlighted.
I welcome you all to join these efforts.
Excellencies,
Civil society remains at the heart of our efforts, particularly women’s and youth organizations; We must ensure they have the strategic pathways and resources they need, in the broadest sense, to claim rights and influence action. These voices are essential in shaping the future, and we are committed to standing with them every step of the way.
Excellencies, Colleagues and Partners, Feminists,
Beijing+30 must be a moment which resonates across the entire multilateral system.
UN agencies will engage in Beijing+30 commemorations, contribute towards the implementation of the Secretary-General’s Gender Equality Acceleration Plan and, most importantly, support member states to accelerate and scale up the implementation of commitments.
All of these imperatives cannot be confined to spaces dedicated exclusively to discussion of gender equality. They must be front-and-centre everywhere, across all environmental discourse, be it on the causes and consequences of inequalities between countries, the climate and environmental crises, peace and security and democracy.
We have an opportunity here and beyond to recommit to the principles of the Beijing Platform for Action.
We have an opportunity to put women and girls in this region at the center of our economic, social, and political agendas.
Most of all, we have an opportunity to display courage and boldness, to recommit, to focus, to accelerate and to embrace accountability for our actions and for our commitments.
I have no doubt that future generations will judge us on how we rise to or fail in facing the challenges before us in this turbulent time in the world. There is no greater challenge than inequality, no greater opportunity than equality.
It is simply a choice that we here must make, and I have confidence, and all the confidence, that we will do that, together.
I wish you the best with your deliberations and look forward to the year ahead.
And I thank you very much.