Statement by H.E. Mr. Masud Bin Momen, Ambassador and Permanent Representative Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations at the Annual Session 2018 of the Executive Board of UN-WOMEN New York, 19 June, 2018
Madam President
01. I thank you and the Executive director Madam Phumzile for the statements delivered today. Bangladesh delegation highly appreciates the role of the Executive Board in guiding the UN-Women and successfully placing it as the most effective and important entity to represent the core issues facing the women and girl population across the world. Bangladesh as an active participant of the CSW is committed to work closely with UN-Women and all member states towards effectively implementing strategies for securing the desired place for women in global development.
02. Securing recognition about the centrality of gender equality and empowerment of women in development by the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement is a major achievement. However, realization of women’s human rights has been held back by the persistence of historical and structural unequal power relations between women and men, poverty, inequalities and disadvantages. Women’s access to ownership and control over resources, growing gaps in equal opportunity, limited access to universal health-care and education, gender-based violence, discriminatory laws and policies, negative social norms and the unequal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work are prevalent particularly in least developed countries. It stresses the urgency of eliminating those structural barriers in order to realize gender equality and empower rural women and girls in true sense.
03. Climate change poses challenges for poverty eradication and the achievement of sustainable development. Owing to gender inequalities, rural women and girls, especially in developing countries, including LDCs, small island and landlocked developing states, are often disproportionately affected by the adverse impacts of climate change, extreme weather events and natural disasters. Women and girls’ agenda will not be addressed properly if commitments made in the Paris agreement are not fully realized. We strongly believe that understanding the issues from the developing countries’ perspective is the key to mainstreaming gender into all development policies at the global level and more efforts and resources are required to be channeled to these countries.
Madam President
04. The world is witnessing the unprecedented rise in vulnerabilities to women and children caused by war, conflicts, forced displacements where in many cases basic human rights are being violated in humanitarian situations.
05. While support of the international community is critical, role of national policies and leadership remains as the most important factor. Bangladesh is leading in women empowerment, gender equality and mainstreaming gender by example. Our Prime Minister was accorded the “Planet 50-50 Champion” by the UN-Women and the “Agent of Change Award” by the Global Partnership Forum in 2016. She was recognized by Forbes as the “9th most powerful women in politics in 2017” as a recognition to her people-oriented development priorities. We attach greater importance on women and children issues as it sets the platform for implementing the 2030 agenda in a sustainable manner. Bangladesh incorporated women issues in all the major development related policies and strategies while preparing gender sensitive budget to separately track the development of women. Increased women’s participation in politics, economic empowerment of women, eliminating violence against women, women’s participation in peace building and humanitarian actions all speak for our sincere efforts to establish gender equality in the country. We consider the UN Women as a trusted partner in these endeavors.
Madam President
06. We highly appreciate UN Women’s effort to end discrimination and provide support towards empowerment of women and girls to integrate gender equality concerns into national priorities such as climate change, disaster preparedness, migration and social protection. Bangladesh’s commendable work in these areas may help other countries to build a climate resilient women and girl friendly adaptation framework. We believe inclusion of UN-Women in UN system’s humanitarian assistance efforts would help mitigating sufferings of women and girls in distress conditions caused by conflicts and natural disasters. UN-Women’s partnership with Bangladesh has been reinforced by its recent role in tackling catastrophic situation created by the sudden influx of Rohingya Refugees of which majority are women and girls from Myanmar. We gratefully acknowledge the excellent support provided by UN-Women on the ground to join hand with the Government and the people of Bangladesh in reassuring support to the traumatize and vulnerable women and girls in the camps for several months. Due to the impact of the monsoon, sufferings of the women and girls has increased manifold and we urge UN-Women to reinforce their support in providing a better life to these distress population. We thankfully recall the visit by Executive Director Ms. Phumzile to Cox’s bazar to see for herself the sufferings of the women and girls in the camps.
Madam President
07. We commend the Strategic Plan 2018-21 of the UN Women. We hope that UN-Women would continue its support in full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and gender-responsive implementation of the Agenda 2030 with priority to the least developed countries. Finally, I like to assure UN-Women our support in implementing its Strategic Plan, country program in Bangladesh and the excellent work that is being done in the camps of Cox’s bazar.
I thank you Madam President