Speech: Our task is clear: Build momentum, prepare effectively, and deliver

My thanks also to our UN Women colleagues in Zimbabwe and the Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa for their support.

And my thanks, always, to all UN Women colleagues, here in Headquarters and across the world, who work every day to advance women’s rights and empowerment. To the teams on the frontline, working tirelessly in humanitarian and crisis settings, standing hand in hand with women’s networks to deliver support where it’s needed most; they have my gratitude, as I know they have yours.

We meet at a time when global peace is fragile, our values questioned, and the promise of gender equality hanging in the balance. Our thoughts are with the women and girls across the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], in Myanmar, in Haiti, and Sudan, and many more countries, whose hope remains peace. We must carry that hope with us, a hope for peace to prevail, for justice, and for a world where rights and dignity belong to every woman and girl—to all people.

In this increasingly complex world, gender equality remains our great, unrealized solution.

Global challenges require global solutions, but grassroots solutions matter too. Whether it is pursuing peace, rebuilding economies, tackling climate change, or navigating technology’s gains and risks—women are key.

Where afforded the opportunities which are their right, women’s contributions are game-changing. And yet, we are denying them these opportunities. Of the 14 indicators under SDG 5 [Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls], only two are close to target today. The remaining 12 remain well off track.

Thirty years ago, Member States promised, through the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, full and equal participation for all women and girls. This promise remains urgent today.

As we look towards the Beijing+30 high-level meeting this September, our task is clear: build momentum, prepare effectively, and deliver.

UN Women is supporting Member States, civil society, and women’s movements across regions to translate the Beijing Action Agenda from commitment to change. We look forward to working with you to deliver on the promise of equality.

At CSW69 [69th session of the Commission of the Status of Women], Member States adopted a strong Political Declaration, reaffirming the Beijing Platform of Action and its relevance as we look towards 2030. The Declaration sent a powerful message: that even in a polarized world, the United Nations can come together for women and girls.

Let me remind us why this matters. Gender equality is not only Goal 5—it is the great enabler for every Sustainable Development Goal. We cannot end poverty without investing in care. We cannot build peace without women at the table. We cannot protect the planet while excluding half the world’s population.

That is why the USD 420 billion gender financing gap is so frustrating, and why the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, Spain, is so important. It must be an opportunity to recommit, and to invest.

In 2024, contributions to UN Women rose to USD 593 million. This support reflects not only commitment to our mandate, but trust in us as a vehicle for multilateralism. For that, I sincerely thank you.

But we are also acutely aware of today’s funding realities. Tough cost-containment decisions are being made. Scenarios, including worst-case, are being planned. Women’s organizations and their crucial work are being made unviable by these cuts. Our partners are struggling. Our peers across the UN system, whose work we are mandated to coordinate, are under duress. These cuts undermine progress, reduce opportunity, jeopardize peace, and leave us all worse off.

This multilateral system remains our best hope. We must strengthen it. Reform it. And ensure that it maintains a focus on the rights of all women and girls.

We will continue to adapt, so that we can continue delivering for women and girls. We will work on ensuring greater efficiencies, reducing costs, exploring costs-sharing with our sister agencies, and as you will hear, in our new Strategic Plan, we will become more focused and streamlined.

The pivot to the countries and regions initiative has given us an advantage, and we are all well on our way to meet the target of 200 personnel moving by the end of 2026, reducing our New York footprint by 33 per cent.

My annual report before you charts the third year of implementing our Strategic Plan 2022–2025. It tells a story of real, measurable, hard-earned progress. In 2024, UN Women worked in 109 countries and territories, investing over USD 622 million to advance gender equality. Across our four impact areas, the results should make us all proud:

• 325 laws adopted, revised, or repealed to advance and protect women’s rights.
• Nearly USD 220 million channelled to civil society, including women-led organizations and feminist grassroots groups.
• Gender data now covers over half of SDG indicators, up from a quarter in 2016.
• Across 71 countries, electoral processes, political inclusion, and legal reforms supported to better open doors to women’s leadership.
• In debt-stressed economies, UN Women worked with 70 governments to prioritize gender in budgeting and to transform care systems.
• Against the rising tide of gender-based violence, we strengthened survivor-centred services in 29 countries and saw increased access in 30.
• We established a global programme to tackle technology-facilitated violence—efforts that informed the first-ever UN General Assembly resolution on ending digital violence.
• We supported over 60 disability-inclusive projects.
• We continue to support humanitarian response, through our membership in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee. As a result, in 19 countries, humanitarian teams routinely seek guidance from local women’s organizations and gender experts. We are increasing the availability of gender data and analysis, supporting a more inclusive response.
• In conflict and crisis contexts, from Gaza to Sudan, from Haiti to Ukraine, from Myanmar, the DRC, the Sahel, and many more, UN Women remains on the ground, working with women’s organizations.
• Across crisis contexts, UN Women supported national action plans for women, peace and security; helped shape disaster legislation; and expanded humanitarian responses in at least 24 countries.

All of this was achieved while improving transparency, governance, and agility as a UN entity.

We welcome the latest Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) review, which affirmed UN Women’s strong performance across management, results, and organizational effectiveness—reflecting growing partner trust. Its recommendations are informing our Strategic Plan 2026–2029.

Looking ahead, this new Strategic Plan is an opportunity to consolidate progress, to sharpen focus, and to apply lessons from the midterm review. Consultations are ongoing, and we thank you for all the inputs we have already received.

Grounded in international agreements, including CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, and the WPS agenda, it will reflect the voices of Member States, civil society, youth, the private sector, and UN partners. And it will remain proudly anchored in UN Women’s triple mandate—normative, coordination, operational—because this is how ambition becomes delivery.

We discuss our new Strategic Plan alongside the broader UN80 process. Its theme, “Building our future together”, is as apt as UN Women’s role within it is clear. We will provide our best advice and support to colleagues across the system and to you all, Member States, to realize the promises made to women and girls.

UN80 is an opportunity to make the UN more effective, efficient, and aligned with the mandates you entrust us through our Executive Boards and the General Assembly. UN Women, born of UN reform, is fully engaged in this effort. We are co-coordinating the UN system’s Development Cluster, and contribute actively to the Peace and Security, Humanitarian, and Human Rights clusters.

Across each of these, we are making the case that any credible reform must have women’s rights and empowerment at its core, because gender-blind reform will be failed reform. And we are offering concrete and practical ways to make that happen.

Let me be clear: there are many ways to organize the system’s work. But a UN system that delivers on gender equality is one with a strong and empowered gender equality entity with a broad triple mandate. One equipped to add value across the system, that supports critical intergovernmental processes, delivers for women and girls in your countries, and drives system-wide coherence through cost-effective coordination. One that women and girls can count on, because it belongs to them, it works for them, and it stands with them.

We are proud of the results we have shared.

While we are never complacent, we believe we have earned your trust—and it is valuable trust to us—because we have shown what our mandate, transparency, and collaboration, together with your support, can achieve.

We also know difficult times lie ahead, not least financially. And we know they come amidst a new Strategic Plan, amidst UN80 and more.

We cannot offer more with less, but we will offer better with less, and we will do our best with less. We will be more coordinated and more focused. We believe we can still do better, even with fewer resources, if we seize this moment of reform. A reformed system truly holds that promise, if you choose it.

This is a crucial year on so many fronts. We will be judged by how we rise to it.

Let us mark it by listening, to rural women, women with disabilities, women peacebuilders, women headed households, those living in crisis, climate defenders, and survivors, youth and more.

Let us mark it by reinvigorating multilateralism, so that it delivers more, not less, for women and girls, so that it delivers better for women and girls. By moving from pledges to progress, aspiration to investment, rhetoric to results.

Let us deliver progress that women and girls can hold in their hands. Progress they can see. Progress that we, in these rooms, can look to and be proud of.

This is our task. And as I promise you, UN Women will play its part to the fullest.

I thank you, and I look forward to our time together in this session.