Goal for women on post-2015 UN agenda

Transcript

UN Women says its post-2015 development agenda will have a stand-alone goal for women, focusing on gender-based violence, economic empowerment and leadership in the public and private sectors.

Its executive director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says the Millenium Development Goals, which expire in less than 500 days, have not achieved their targets in some areas of the Pacific.

But she told Mary Baines that does not mean the MDGs have failed, and gives an opportunity for the goals to be carried on as unfinished business.

PHUMZILE MLAMBO-NGCUKA: Like in many parts of the world, poverty is an issue and the majority of the poor are women. We also face the challenge of the under-representation of women in decision-making insitutions in public as well as in private sector and all of these have an impact in the role that women can play to support sustainable development and it is important to address them so I would say there is a win-win: sustainable benefits and

MARY BAINES: The Millenium Development Goals have been criticised as being quite ineffective in the Pacific, particuarly across Melanesia. What are your views on this? Are you happy with how this had played out?

PMN: Well I don't think we should shoot at the Millenium Development Goals. The fact that we did not achieve everything we wanted to achieve, not just in the Pacific, does not mean that the goals, that there was something wrong with the goals. It just shows how difficult the situation is. It does give us the opportunity to carry this as unfinished business, into post 2015. I think my biggest message here, is to ensure that when we move to Post 2015, we do not forget about the unfinished business. If anything, what we have learned out of the Millenium Development Goals, is why we did not achieve it. We have got lots of data,most of it highlights the importance of empowering women, the importance of education, in order for us to have a positive impact across the many, the many goals that we have. What has been highlighted is that you have these problems, but these problems have got solutions. We need political will to push on. We need resources but probably we need political will, more than we need resources. In the post 2015, we have got a stand alone goal that will focus on women, which is much more robust than what we had in the MDG's. This is as a result of the lessons that we've learnt on the MDG's. We clearly, we are not happy with the facts that in the MDG's we had limited indicators that we were tracking out of the MDG's. We have sought to broaden the goal and the Pacific contributed significantly, both in the thinking about how we are going to position this goal and the detail that we are putting into it.

MB: So it has been written this goal? What specifically does it say?

PMN: Well it addresses violence against women, which was regarded as the missing goal in the MDG's. It addresses womens economic empowerment and the systemic changes which needs to happen, so that we have inclusive economies and economic growth and economic development. It addresses the issues of leadership of women across all sectors of society, not just in the public sector. It addresses the importance of addressing unequal pay for unequal work and unpaid care work. All of these have alot of meaning for the women in the Pacific.