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STORY: UN / WOMEN LEADERS
TRT: 2:36
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 15 JULY 2019, NEW YORK CITY
FILE
1. Exterior shot, UN Headquarters
15 JULY 2019, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, meeting room
3. Med shot, podium
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the UN General Assembly:
“We have come a long way since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action nearly 25 years ago. The percentage of female parliamentarians has doubled in that timeframe. As we can see from our list of speakers today, women in power are no longer a rarity.”
5. Med shot, podium
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the UN General Assembly:
“No country has achieved full gender equality and women continue to face discrimination in every region of the world - from suffocating stereotypes to discriminatory laws, harmful practices and violence.”
7. Wide shot, meeting
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations:
“From boardrooms to parliaments, from military ranks to peace tables and of course, the United Nations itself; more women decision makers means more inclusive solutions that would benefit everyone. From driving increased spending on health, education and social protection to enacting laws against discrimination, women leaders certainly have a strong track record as agents of change.”
9. Wide shot, meeting
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations:
“If we are to achieve our ambitious Sustainable Development Agenda, our world needs more women now. And more younger women even more so in power, standing up for gender equality that would create more just and resilient societies and lead to peace and prosperity on a healthy planet.”
11. Wide shot, meeting
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women:
“Next year, when we celebrate the 25 years of the implementation of Beijing Platform our theme is “Generation Equality” because we are emphasizing the importance of intra-generational participation and the role of young people to take us forward. All of these, down together, give us a fighting chance to increase and sustain the participation of women. We can’t wait people, time is up. Time is really, really up.!”
13. Med shot, Gabriela Cuevas Barron, president of IPU speaking
14. Med shot, Helen Clark, former head of UNDP speaking
15. Wide shot, podium
“No country has achieved full gender equality and women continue to face discrimination in every region of the world,” President of the General Assembly, Maria Espinosa said at the opening of a high-level meeting of the Assembly titled “Gender equality and women’s leadership for a sustainable world.”
During her one-year-long mandate as the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Maria Fernanda Espinosa from Ecuador, only a forth women out of 73 persons at the helm of the GA, established an informal group of eminent leaders with the aim “to identify barriers that hinder women’s full participation and leadership and share best practices to speed up women’s empowerment.’
Opening a high-level panel discussion during a second meeting of the group held Monday (15 Jul) in New York, Espinosa said: “we have come a long way since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action nearly 25 years ago. The percentage of female parliamentarians has doubled in that timeframe. As we can see from our list of speakers today, women in power are no longer a rarity.”
However, she pointed out that women lag behind on every Sustainable Development Goal, citing the fact that only 42 percent of countries give women equal rights to land ownership as they give to men, while only 60 percent of countries give women equal access to financial services.
“No country has achieved full gender equality,” said Espinosa. “Women continue to face discrimination in every region of the world - from suffocating stereotypes to discriminatory laws, harmful practices and violence,” she also said.
Also speaking at the meeting, Deputy UN Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said, “from boardrooms to parliaments, from military ranks to peace tables and of course, the United Nations itself; more women decision makers means more inclusive solutions that would benefit everyone.”
She also said: “from driving increased spending on health, education and social protection to enacting laws against discrimination, women leaders certainly have a strong track record as agents of change.”
Deputy Secretary-General said “If we are to achieve our ambitious Sustainable Development Agenda, our world needs more women now. And more younger women even more so in power, standing up for gender equality that would create more just and resilient societies and lead to peace and prosperity on a healthy planet.”
At the fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in September 1995, 189 nations agreed to implement the so-called “Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action” which envisioned gender equality in all dimensions of life and to this day it is still considered as “a powerful source of guidance and inspiration.”
Taking part in panel discussion, Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said “next year, when we celebrate the 25 years of the implementation of Beijing Platform our theme is “Generation Equality” because we are emphasizing the importance of intra-generational participation and the role of young people to take us forward. All of these, down together, give us a fighting chance to increase and sustain the participation of women.
Pointing at her wristwatch, Mlambo-Ngcuka emphasized: “we can’t wait people, time is up. Time is really, really up!”
The high-level meeting brought together prominent women leaders from around the globe, including a Mexican MP Gabriela Cuevas Barron who is also the president of the Inter Parliamentarian Union and Helen Clark, former head of the UN Development Programme.
