Media advisory: ‘Making Every Woman and Girl Count’ programme high-level launch event
Date:
What: A newly established public-private partnership to support UN Women’s “Making Every Woman and Girl Count” programme will be launched on 21 September at an event jointly organized by UN Women, the Government of Australia the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Data2X (United Nations Foundation).
The programme seeks to address the urgent need to increase availability of accurate information on gender equality and women’s rights in order to inform policy and decision making. Currently, there is a huge data gap—from the complete lack of statistics on how many women and girls live in poverty, to inaccurate measures of women’s engagement in economic activities, based on sexist assumptions.
The high-level launch event will provide an opportunity for world leaders to discuss how the global community’s efforts, including through specific new investments in support of this initiative, will help to close gender data gaps and contribute to sustainable development and better results for all. The event follows up on the Joint Announcement on Implementation of Agenda 2030: Accelerating Progress Towards Gender Equality made during the Women Deliver Conference in May 2016, acknowledging that high quality gender statistics are critically needed to meet the ambitions and measure the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
When: Wednesday, 21 September, 1.15 – 2.30 p.m. EDT
Where: UN Headquarters (ECOSOC Chamber), New York, US
Who:
The co-hosts are:
- Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women Executive Director
- Julie Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia
- Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Emily Courey Pryor, Executive Director of Data2X
The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, will deliver a video message. Other participants include are: Mme. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, Mr. Yoweri K. Museveni, President of Uganda, Mr. Macki Sall, President of Senegal, Mrs. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Ms. Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Mr. Wade Warren, Assistant to the Administrator of USAID for the Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning, Ms. Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie of Canada, Ms. Gwen Hines, Director for International Relations of DFID, Mr. Shamshad Akhtar, Executive Secretary of ESCAP and Ms. Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, CEO of Plan International. Ms. Cicily Kariuki, Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs of Kenya will also offer remarks.
Media opportunities:
Media are welcome to attend the event. UN Media accreditation is required (learn more here). If you are interested in interviewing the participants, please contact their respective media teams below.
Media Contacts:
UN Women
Maria Sanchez, E-mail: maria.sanchez[at]unwomen.org and Oisika Chakrabarti, E-mail: Oisika.chakrabarti[at]unwomen.org, Tel: +1 646-781-4507
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Sarah Logan, E-mail: sarah.logan[at]gatesfoundation.org
Data2X (UN Foundation)
Nina Rabinovitch Blecker, E-mail: nblecker[at]unfoundation.org, Tel: +1 617-823-4107
Australia
Ciaran Chestnutt, E-mail: Ciaran.Chestnutt@dfat.gov.au, Tel: +1 929-248-0542
Follow the online conversation on Twitter using the hashtags #UNGA #GenderData
Background:
Gender statistics are rarely prioritized in data collection and the resources devoted to them, both at the national and international level, remain grossly insufficient. Investing in gender statistics will enable the creation of evidence that is essential to inform more effective and targeted decision-making to reach those furthest behind first, and make meaningful and lasting changes in the lives of women and girls everywhere.
It is estimated that close to $1 billion will be needed annually between 2016 and 2030 to monitor the SDGs—and these are conservative estimates. Currently, over 80 per cent of the indicators in SDG 5, the goal referring to women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership, cannot be measured.
‘Making Every Woman and Girl Count’ is a new UN Women flagship programme that will support countries to improve the production, accessibility and use of gender statistics over the next five years, including efforts to enhance the capacities of national statistics institutions.