Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women, urged negotiators to integrate women's contributions throughout the text, rather than in "an isolated paragraph," and outlined actions needed to allow women to contribute to and benefit from sustainable development, from ensuring access to leadership roles to stopping violence.
18 June 2012: The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) held a press conference at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) to highlight the need to mainstream women’s contributions in all aspects of the Rio+20 outcome document.
Urging negotiators to integrate women throughout the text, rather than in “an isolated paragraph,” Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women, outlined actions needed to allow women to contribute to, and benefit from sustainable development, from ensuring access to leadership roles to stopping violence. Highlighting the “untapped potential” of women in advancing sustainable development, Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Climate Change, pointed to a principle on women’s participation in Agenda 21, adopted at Rio in 1992, and called for its reaffirmation and strengthening.
The mandate of UN Women is to advance gender equality. Additional events hosted by UN Women at Rio+20 include a Leaders’ Forum on 19 June 2012 and a high-level Leaders’ Summit on 21 June 2012, on gender equality and women’s empowerment for sustainable development. [UN Press Release]