EU Presidency Statement - Mainstreaming a gender perspective - ECOSOC

Mrs Vice-President,

I have the honour to take the floor on behalf of the European Union with regard to the EU statement for the sub-item 7 f) of the ECOSOC Substantive Session on "Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the UN system". The acceding countries Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the countries associated with the EU - Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey - as well as the EFTA country of Norway - have aligned themselves with this statement.

Following the Beijing Conference, the ECOSOC endorsed the strategy of gender mainstreaming by adopting the agreed conclusions 1997/2 which provided guidance on the implementation of gender mainstreaming and provided a framework for monitoring the progress in gender mainstreaming within the UN. It is also significant that 189 UN Member States adopted the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women as one of the eight millennium development goals.

Mrs. Vice-President,

The EU welcomes ECOSOC's decision to establish gender mainstreaming into all policies and programmes of the UN system as a regular sub-item on its annual agenda (resolution 2001/41) with the aim of monitoring and evaluating progress made. The EU appreciates the way in which the Council's subsidiary bodies and the Council itself have paid specific attention to the advancement of women. It is worthy of note, for example, that the 1999 Council's High Level Segment recognized the important role women play in attaining growth and development and the Ministerial Declaration recognized gender equality as one of the mutually reinforcing elements for progress in health and education and stressed the need for gender mainstreaming in all human resources development policies including programmes design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

However the EU notes that, notwithstanding the efforts made, gender perspectives are still addressed to varying degrees and are often unfortunately not addressed at all. They need to become a matter of routine in the analyses of issues and the formulation of policy across the UN system. Towards this goal, the high level round table on institutional capacity-building, held for the first time at this year's session of the Commission on the Status of Women, provides us with a valuable example of good practice. Indeed, the round table provided an opportunity to engage in interactive dialogue and to share practical experiences, lessons learned and obstacles encountered in promoting gender equality.

Mrs. Vice-President,

The goal to reduce gender gaps in all aspects of life is an enormous task and needs appropriate methodologies and policies. Recognising the pivotal role played by CSW in promoting the advancement of women and gender equality across the work of the UN, the EU considers the Council's other Functional Commissions equally critical in achieving this goal. In particular, the CHR should integrate a gender perspective, including women's human rights, in all aspects of its work. We also encourage other Functional Commissions of ECOSOC, as well as ECOSOC itself and other UN processes, to take into account the work done by CSW. We are pleased to note that this year, for the first time, the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights addressed the forty-seventh Commission on the Status of Women, stressing the importance of a real cooperation and consensus on gender equality and women's human rights. Several other subsidiary bodies, such as the Commission for Social Development and the Commission for Sustainable Development, have done likewise in their respective areas and other Functional Commissions are encouraged to follow this example.

The EU recognizes that successful approaches to gender mainstreaming have been developed, but it is still evident that more work has to be done to strengthen the incorporation of gender perspectives in policy frameworks. At the same time high priority should be placed on monitoring the implementation of existing gender policies to ensure that they encourage good practices and on following up the major UN Conferences, including the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the International Conference on Financing for Development in the framework of the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium development goals. As suggested by the inter-agency network on women and gender equality at its last annual session (February 2003) there is a need to enhance attention to gender perspectives in follow up and implementation processes to global conferences for ensuring that gains made in outcome documents are fully implemented. The ECOSOC, which has recently been confirmed by the GA in its role as the central mechanism for system-wide coordination of implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations Conferences, has a particular responsibility in mainstreaming gender in these processes. It is also important for ensuring the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

Mrs. Vice-President,

The EU strongly believes that mainstreaming gender perspectives in all policies and programmes is a way to create a safer, better and more equitable world for all. Indeed, the EU has a long-standing commitment to promoting gender equality - a guiding principle in the EU's intergovernmental processes, external relations and development cooperation policies and also in the national policies of the Member States. In this context, the Community framework strategy on gender equality (2001-2005) has been developed to capitalise on and give impetus to our work in this field. In this respect the European Union would welcome the engagement of the Economic and Social Council in:

• encouraging the United Nations system to consider further measures to strengthen the implementation and monitoring of gender mainstreaming within all policies and programmes;
  
  
• encouraging relevant Commissions to take additional steps to address and monitor gender aspects within their mandates incorporating such aspects in multi-year programmes of work or thematic discussions;
  
  
• urging the Commissions to use more systematically the work of the Commission on the Status of Women;
  
  
• deciding to devote its coordination segment 2004 to a review and appraisal of the system-wide implementation of its agreed conclusions 1997/2 on gender mainstreaming.

| Haut |

• EU Presidency Statement - The Commission on Human Rights - ECOSOC (23/7/2003)