Coverage: UN Women Executive Director visits Chile and takes part in high-level Beijing+20 event
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During her first official visit to Chile, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka met with key officials and activists, and co-hosted a high-level event on “Women in power and decision-making: Building a different world,” with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Held on 27-28 February in Santiago, the event is one of the major Beijing+20 events being organized around the world.
28 February
Women leaders call to ‘step it up’ for gender equality
“It’s time to step it up for gender equality. We have waited long enough!” With this call to action, global women leaders gathered at the high-level event on “Women in power and decision-making: Building a different world,” held in Santiago, Chile, on 27–28 February 2015. They urged governments and the private sector to take stronger measures to close the gap of inequalities in order to achieve the goals established 20 years ago during the Fourth World Conference on Women that resulted in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Read the Executive Director's closing speech.
27 February
More than 300 global women leaders gathered today in Santiago, Chile, to take part in the high-level conference that aims to galvanize political support to achieve gender equality and honour commitments made by 189 governments to uphold the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The event was inaugurated by the President of Chile –and founding Executive Director of UN Women– Michelle Bachelet, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
In her opening address at the "High-level Event on Women in Power and Decision-making", held on 27 February, in Santiago, Chile, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka urged bolder action to fulfil the commitments made at the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 to increase women’s representation in leadership positions in all important sectors of society.
26 February
During her visit to Chile, the Executive Director participated in the roundtable “Women’s Participation: Learning from Community Experiences” hosted by the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, to facilitate a dialogue between members of the Troika+ of Women Leaders on Gender and Climate Change (Troika+), grass-roots representatives, in particular women, engaged in climate action and representatives of local and national government involved in the design and implementation of climate policy and decision-making processes.
As part of her agenda, the Executive Director met with civil society, along with H. E. Claudia Pascual, Minister of SERNAM, to articulate strategies that will allow all women to access decision-making positions in all sectors, to close the gap of inequalities. The meeting resulted in a series of recommendations that were brought to the attention of global women leaders by a representative from civil society during the main event.
25 February
The Executive Director arrived for her first official visit to Chile on 25 February and took part in a series of meetings with Government officials, including Heraldo Muñoz, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Claudia Pascual, Minister of Women and Gender Equality; and others, to discuss the women’s rights and women’s empowerment agenda. She also met with representatives of Chilean grass-roots and civil society organizations, and with the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice.
24 February
Follow the Executive Director’s visit to Chile on Twitter @ONUMujeres #Beijing20 and on Facebook.com/ONUMujeres
Photos of the visit will be available on: flickr.com/unwomen
The high-level event is also being livestreamed here.