Remarks at a UN Women Executive Board Meeting

Thank you very much, Mr. President, congratulations on assuming this important role. We certainly share our condolences on the tragic loss of life in Türkiye and Syria and the very profound affects this will have on so many women and girls.

Thank you, Executive Director Bahous for your opening remarks.

The United States deeply values its relationship with UN Women and acknowledges the organization’s critical contributions to advancing gender equity and equality around the world.

As we approach the midpoint of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, UN Women’s triple mandate is more important than ever. Social and economic fallout from interlinked crises, compounded by devastating backlash against gender equality and the rollback of women and girl’s rights threatens our fragile gains. Nowhere do we see this more clearly than in Afghanistan. We condemn in the strongest terms the Taliban’s edicts that ban women from universities and from working for NGOs, this on top of an existing ban on girls attending secondary school. The United States continues to stand in solidarity with Afghan women and girls.

Promoting gender equity and equality and the empowerment of women and girls in all their diversity remains a core pillar of U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This is grounded in the belief that we cannot protect human rights, maintain peace and security, and advance sustainable development unless the human rights of all women and girls are respected.

Domestically, the United States is proud of our first-ever National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality. We look forward to releasing a U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence domestically in the coming months.

Globally, the United States has released new strategies on preventing and responding to gender-based violence and on women’s economic security. We hope both efforts will make important contributions to advancing the wellbeing of women and girls worldwide.

Turning to UN Women’s critical role, we would like to highlight two areas we look forward to learning more about:

• First, we believe UN Women’s triple mandate is foundational to the organization’s success. We urge UN Women to prioritize the mandate’s strategic execution above all else. While we appreciate UN Women’s efforts to advance gender equity and equality inhumanitarian settings, we ask you to brief the Executive Board on your work in this area.
• Second, UN Women’s role in overseeing the Generation Equality Forum is highly valued. As members of the Multistakeholder Leadership Group, we are committed to the success of the Forum but are concerned about a lack of coordinated communication to commitment-makers. We encourage UN Women to provide the necessary guidance to ensure commitments to the Forum are realized.

To close, the principles of transparency, accountability, oversight, and efficiency are at the heart of what we do to responsibly implement programs. We thank you, Madame Executive Director for your focus on this and call on UN Women and the Executive Board to continue prioritizing these important principles.

Thank you.

Original source can be found here.