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| UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Nanette Braun, Chief of Communications and Advocacy, address press. Photo Credit: UN Women |
The
new Executive Director of the UN Entity for Gender Equity and the Empowerment
of Women (UN Women), who was speaking in New York during her first press
conference, said: "Education is one of the founding services that all
women and girls need to access in order for us to make a difference."
"Education
is the foundation for everything we need to do to succeed," Ms
Mlambo-Ngcuka said following her appointed in July and her taking up the post
in August. This issue will feature prominently in the entity's agenda as part
of a push to accelerate the achievement of the anti-poverty targets, the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), she added.
One
of the goals of the MDGs is to ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys
and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
However,
the head of the UN entity tasked with advancing gender equality, said it is not
only crucial to facilitate access to education for girls but also to reduce the
number of girls who drop out of school.
According
to the UN News Service, Ms
Mlambo-Ngcuka has several priorities in her agenda. One of which is ensuring
women's reproductive health rights.
"I
see reproductive health and reproductive rights as an essential building block
on which we need to serve the women, and I see economic empowerment as another
important layer. Having those layers we can then address poverty and we will be
able to lead to women's emancipation. All of these are integral," she was
quoted as saying.
But,
she noted that working with men and boys is also important as they play an
important role in actively fighting for the emancipation of women. While it is
important to empower women and have their voices be heard, it is also important
to strengthen national institutions to better serve women's needs, she added.
Ms
Mlambo-Ngcuka’s hope and vision is “that together, and using the existing
agreements as well as conventions, we are at a position where we can be game
changers as far as supporting women's emancipation."
She
stressed the need for women's voices to be heard, served by public institutions
and must feel the service that public institutions are bringing to them. In
doing this, she added that UN Women will seek to collaborate and coordinate
with organizations and institutions within and outside the UN with both the
expertise and the resources to advance women's interests.
Another
priority for the UN Women boss is to increase funding for the entity.
She
outlined that UN Women will seek to work with Member States to increase their
contributions, as well explore ways to diversify funding sources from the
private sector, foundations, philanthropists and individuals.
UN
Women is currently looking to raise $100 million by the end of 2013, according
to UN News Service. Source: UN News Center
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