Spain and UN Women sign strategic partnership agreement to promote women’s rights and gender equality
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UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Jesús Manuel Gracia Aldaz, Spain’s Secretary of State for International Cooperation and for Ibero-America, signed a Strategic Partnership Framework in New York on 29 September to strengthen collaboration in promoting women’s rights and gender equality.
The signature of this agreement takes place during the seventieth session of the UN General Assembly, which saw the approval of Agenda 2030, the new global development framework for the next 15 years, which includes a stand-alone sustainable development goal to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls (Goal 5).
The text of the agreement states that Spanish Cooperation regards UN Women as a “strategic partner” to promote women’s rights and gender equality, and specifically, to achieve Goal 5.
The agreement recognizes that “there is strong convergence between the objectives of UN Women and Spanish Cooperation. Spanish Cooperation’s IV Master Plan stresses the importance of promoting women’s rights and gender equality as a key guideline in its work contributing to human development, to the eradication of poverty and to the full exercise of rights.
The agreement will determine the collaborative relationship between both parties over the 2015-2016 period and will contribute to promoting “a stable and predictable UN Women funding framework, subject to available funding, based on its multi-year strategic planning”.
This new Strategic Partnership Framework reaffirms the long-standing partnership existing between Spain and UN Women that was formalized in 2005 with the signature of a first legal framework for fostering relations between Spain and UN Women in all areas, including the implementation of UN Women cooperation activities, projects and programmes.