Commonwealth Secretariat and UN Women sign new MoU to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment
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UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma signed a Memorandum of Understanding in New York on 22 September to strengthen collaboration in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. The MoU builds on existing cooperation between the two organizations and will help to achieve the common goal of realizing the rights of women and girls as critical preconditions for effective and sustainable development.
In his statement, Mr. Sharma noted that awareness on gender equality has increased over the years and the Commonwealth will keep on pushing the agenda for greater equality to ensure that women and girls are central to the interventions in political, economic and social development.
“We welcome this partnership. Both the Commonwealth and UN Women have strong track records of championing the rights of women,” he said. “Together with our programmes to promote gender equality in Member States, [it] shows the strength of continuing Commonwealth commitment to empowering girls and women. This agreement will open doors and create new opportunities as we progress [with] our plans for gender equality in the Post-2015 era.”
Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka said that the renewed and strengthened partnership will provide a great opportunity to leverage both organizations’ comparative advantages in shared goals to contribute to transformative changes for women and girls.
“Today we have signed into action a partnership that brings together not only shared values, but complementary strengths that will benefit girls and women throughout the Commonwealth family,” she said. “Together our work will accelerate momentum in crucial areas that address barriers, build and nurture capacity, as well as track and declare progress,” she added, noting that efforts will focus on eliminating discriminatory laws in Commonwealth countries as well as ending all forms of violence against women and girls.
“We will also work together on women’s education through the provision of relevant, quality and second chance education and use technology to reach Commonwealth States, especially island States,” added Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka. “And we will work closely together on gender-responsive budgeting, which is an enabler for action on all these fronts.”
The signed MoU comes days before world leaders agree on new global goals for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at the UN’s Sustainable Development Summit. The MoU provides a framework to promote the development of national capacities in Commonwealth Member States to advance the role of women in decision-making bodies, in addition to promoting accountability for gender equality and the empowerment of women.