I will continue to call for greater financial support for women’s organizations. Last week, we launched the United Nations System-wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan. This Plan is based on the conclusions of the Independent Review we commissioned, to report on our capacity to deliver on gender equality. It’s important that this review, that was commissioned by us and that has been made public, shows not only our achievements but also our weaknesses.

There are many things in the UN (United Nations) that still need to change and this was detected by this independent review. This is the reason why we are launching this Gender Equality Acceleration Plan with a system-wide perspective across the whole UN-system. We count on you to look permanently what we are doing and to help us correct what we are still not able to do in an adequate way.

The ambition of the plan is clear: to ensure every part of the United Nations system is helping to advance rights and equality for women and girls. It includes a commitment to opening financing opportunities for grassroots women’s organizations, and a target to raise $300 million for women’s organizations in conflict and crisis settings over the next three years.

Equality requires investment — in women’s organizations and beyond. To address women’s poverty, we must put money into education, training, social protection, care policies, ending violence against women, and much more. We must make that case to governments, the private sector and everywhere funding decisions are taken. But we must also push for changes at the global level, to make far more finance available.

Debt service payments are crowding out investment in public services — including investments to advance the rights of women and girls. We must deal with these immediate challenges. That is why we have proposed an SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) stimulus of $500 billion a year in affordable, long-term finance for developing countries. This will help to turbocharge progress on SDG 5 on gender equality, and across the 2030 Agenda.

The SDG Stimulus also calls for action on debt, to create breathing space for countries facing impossible repayment schedules. Leaders endorsed the Stimulus at last year’s SDG Summit.

But we also need action to ensure finance flows to women and girls. That means increasing the number of women in leadership roles in governments and financial institutions. And it means all countries putting in place budgets, policies and tax systems that respond to women and girls, reflecting their realities and their needs. Together, let’s keep up the pressure to make this happen.

Inequality has many dimensions and they are all interlinked. The dramatic inequality that exists today between rich countries and the least developed countries is a factor that enhances inequality at the gender level. There is no way we can fight inequality effectively in developing countries if we do not address simultaneously the problems of inequality between developing and developed countries. The fighting against inequality is a comprehensive struggle in all areas of human activity. So, let’s work together for action for the long term: to reform the international financial system — which is woefully out of date — so that it reflects the reality of today’s economy and today’s world.

The Summit of the Future later this year is a chance to drive progress. I am urging Member States to take it. And I am urging you to use your strong voices and activism to influence your governments to play their full part in the Summit, for women and girls today and tomorrow. 

Women and girls are a constant theme through the Summit of the Future. And I will do everything possible for an outcome that delivers for them. I urge you to join me on this.

We are asking Member States to support our proposals for a New Agenda for Peace — which puts women’s leadership and participation at the center of decision making. We are aiming to agree a Global Digital Compact — which includes measures to close the gendered digital divide and harness technology for the SDGs.

And we are asking Member States to support our plans for metrics that go beyond Gross Domestic Product. GDP entirely disregards the unpaid care work and household labor, overwhelmingly done by women and girls, that forms the foundation of economies around the world.

In these strained times, let’s unite around our shared goals. And our shared commitment to equality and human rights for all. I will never stop fighting for a world that works for women and girls. And I very much look forward to hearing your views on how, together, we can take power from the patriarchy. As I said in the beginning, essentially, the question of Gender Equality is a question of power. In my experience, especially as a politician for a long period, power is never given, power has to be taken.

Thank you.

(Excerpts of Secretary-General’s remarks at the Townhall Meeting with Civil Society on the Occasion of the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women on 13 March 2024.)