Director General/Executive Director
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
My thanks to my fellow International Gender Champions from the Permanent Missions of Costa Rica, Slovenia and the US for leading this initiative in Vienna.
The global International Gender Champions initiative has brought together committed leaders, including our Secretary-General, to break down gender barriers.
It has helped to mobilize not just UN organizations but also the wider diplomatic community and our partners in civil society to raise awareness of the need to take forward our efforts to promote gender equality and gender mainstreaming in all areas of our work.
For the UN family in Vienna, being part of the network offers an important means for exchanging knowledge and ideas for how we can generate momentum towards meaningful change.
At the UN Office at Vienna and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, we are guided by our Strategy for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, which has been developed in line with UN system-wide action.
We have taken concrete and systematic steps to effectively mainstream gender and promote women's empowerment in our programmatic activities as well as in our organizational policies and practices.
My colleague Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at UN Women in September recognized our efforts to implement the Enabling Environment Guidelines for the UN System. I am proud to display our certificate in my office, where visitors can see this testimony to our commitment.
We can only act when we can understand, and UNODC has been at the forefront of gender-sensitive drug- and crime-related research and analysis, through flagship publications including the World Drug Report and our global reports on human trafficking and homicide.
We see a clear need to further develop and promote gender-responsive approaches across UNODC's mandate areas of drugs and health, crime, corruption and terrorism.
This includes addressing gender challenges in prevention, treatment and rehabilitation for drug use disorders as well as HIV/AIDS.
It also includes working to strengthen criminal justice responses to eliminate violence against women, promote women's participation and representation in criminal justice agencies and provide essential services to victims of violence.
Mainstreaming gender and achieving gender parity in areas where women have traditionally been underrepresented, including law enforcement, represent complex challenges. The problems are systemic and the contributing factors are many.
That is why this year's International Women's Day theme, "Think equal, build smart, innovate for change," is very timely and important.
We need to think outside the box if we want to achieve a Planet 50-50 by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
This meeting to explore the potential of Impact Groups to advance the work of the Vienna chapter of the International Gender Champions can contribute to these objectives.
I would like to thank our guests from Geneva for sharing their experience and supporting the network in Vienna to do our part.
You can count on my support, and I look forward to hearing the results of your discussions.
Thank you.