Ministry Statements & Speeches:
Madam President
I start by congratulating the President and Vice-Presidents on their election to the Bureau – New Zealand is excited to be back on the UN Women Executive Board and we look forward to working with you.
We express our sincere sympathies to those in Samoa, Tonga and Fiji affected by Cyclone Gita. This is the latest example of the vulnerabilities to external shocks faced by Small Island Developing States. As we know, women and girls face heightened risks in humanitarian emergencies. It is critical we close the gender humanitarian response gap and ensure that humanitarian programming is gender-responsive.
New Zealand is strongly committed to gender equality and women’s empowerment and is a strong supporter of UN Women’s triple mandate. We have a proud history of speaking out on gender issues and equality for women, both domestically and internationally. This year we are celebrating 125 years of women’s suffrage after becoming the first self-governing country to give women the vote. We will have a celebration of this during CSW and we hope you will join us.
Change is happening all over the world in many different ways. The papers presented to this Board meeting highlight the progress that is being made and at the same time, how far there is to go. On current trajectories, it will be 50 years before there is gender parity in parliaments around the world and 170 years before women worldwide will earn as much as men.
Domestically we are continuing efforts to reduce domestic violence, support more girls in education and training, utilise women's skills to contribute to a fair and sustainable economy, encourage and developing women leaders, and ensure women and girls are free from violence. Our Government has underscored its commitment to gender equality by appointing an undersecretary to the Minister of Justice with responsibility for sexual and domestic violence.
We are also working hard to address the gender pay gap. The Government is prioritising closing the pay gap in the core public service and ensuring that the public sector and the private sector are on a similar pathway. The Government has also established a Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles to make recommendations on how to progress legislation to address pay equity.
Madam President
Exciting things are happening for women and girls in the Pacific. For example, last year in Papua New Guinea on International Women’s Day 85,000 people joined a Walk for Peace as part of their commitment to ending violence against women. In the same country, with the support of UN Women, there was a significant increase in the number of women elected to community governments. In Fiji, a national protocol for responding to gender based violence that meets rigorous international standards had been put in place. We must continue to highlight success stories and best practice while shining a light on barriers and where progress is simply not fast enough.
New Zealand is pleased that the UN Pacific Strategy has strongly prioritised gender equality and also that the UN Women’s Pacific Multi-country office is tightly focused on supporting the Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration Statement.
Madam President
UN Women has a critical role to play in supporting the Secretary-General deliver Development System reform, particularly in its coordination across UN agencies on gender equality and women’s empowerment. We expect UN Women to increase its collaboration with other agencies, as outlined in the common chapter, including by supporting more common results and indicators and by implementing more joint programmes. Madam President
New Zealand thanks the leadership and staff of UN Women for their determination and commitment. We wish UN Women well in 2018 and stand ready to support you and the UN system in general, in making progress towards the goals we universally share.