Commitments that are not followed by action cannot fulfill the promise to build a more just and prosperous future for future generations, said President Paul Kagame in regard to achieving gender equality.
He was speaking at the official opening of Women Deliver 2023 held under the theme: Spaces, Solidarity, and Solutions, on July 17, at BK Arena. The conference brings together about 6,000 delegates from across the world in person and more than 200,000 online.
In recent decades, there have been meaningful results in closing the gap between women and men in terms of opportunity and achievement, Kagame said, however, women remain vulnerable to various forms of injustice and are more often employed in informal sector or even expected to provide unpaid labor.
Despite the many efforts in bridging the gender gap, inequalities have been exacerbated by some political pushback movements in certain contexts. Moreover, women and girls are bearing a disproportionate share of the burden of the overlapping health, climate, and economic crisis which the world has faced over the past two years.
“Much more remains to be done to tackle bias attitudes about gender which are deeply embedded in our political, social, and economic systems. All of us share the responsibility to play an active role in changing these negative mindsets,” Kagame said.
Referring to recent studies that show that it could take more than a century to achieve gender equality targets at current rates of progress, he emphasized that leaders and agenda setters must challenge themselves to do things differently and with a sense of urgency.
“Commitments which are not followed by action cannot fulfill our promise to build a more just and prosperous future for the following generations.”
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Chair of the Board, Women Deliver, noted that there has been progress made over the past three decades in achieving gender equality as well as losses in some cases.
“We need to be inclusive, accessible and to co-create. We want to bring together champions of gender equality from all sectors. The solutions we need are political, as well as social and economic, we have to make sure that our momentum become unstoppable,” she added.
Mlambo-Ngcuka also thanked the men who are attending the conference and their work done by going past beyond the patriarchal privileges and actually carrying out their responsibilities.
Sima Bahous, UN Women’s Executive Director, said that they are seeing pushback against gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights, as well as regression in sexual and reproductive health rights, increased gender-based violence, and discrimination.
“In an era of policy crisis, including climate, conflict and Covid-19 recovery, the power and imperative of equality could not be more urgent…We do this by ensuring that we have the essential data, gender statistics, and information. We do this by crushing biases, intentional and unconscious. We do this by making sure that we engage men and boys.”
Progress can be seen in the number of women in legislative positions which has doubled in the current generation, reduced global maternal mortality, and in women’s increased life expectancy. At least 155 countries have laws on domestic violence and 140 countries have legislation on sexual harassment in the workplace.
Rwanda vs gender equality
Rwanda continues to top the list of women-empowering countries across the globe, as a result of an enabling environment for women to be equally represented in leadership positions including politics and at all levels.
President Kagame went on to give examples of what the country has done in that regard including the mainstreaming of the annual gender budget statement to ensure that public spending takes account of how budgetary decisions affect men and women differently.
In addition, the country has invested in programs to engage men at the community level about the importance of sharing childcare responsibilities and preventing domestic violence.
“Our priorities are to advance gender equality across all sectors, especially digital and financial inclusion, and to continue challenging traditional gender norms,” he noted.
“As the world rapidly evolves, we must join forces to ensure that advances in technology work for all of us rather than creating new sources of inequality…change is difficult and does not happen overnight, but together with sustained effort we can make a decisive difference.”
