Women empowerment and gender equality are priority areas for the Maldives and will continue as flagship issues for the Maldives in all areas of its work, says the Maldives. The statement was made by His Excellency Mr. Ahmed Sareer, Permanent Representative of Maldives to the United Nations while speaking at the First Regular Session of 2014 of the Executive Board of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UN-Women).
Ambassador Sareer stated that women's leadership and participation are central to advancing peace and security as well as gender equality goals. He highlighted the role played by UN-Women at all levels, including with the Maldives, on on-going programs by increasing the participation of women in political life as well as gender sensitive budgeting. The Maldives, as an Executive Board member, reaffirmed its support to the realization of the UN-Women’s Strategic Plan for 2014-2017.
The Maldives statement further welcomed the recommendations made in the UN-Women Management Response to the thematic evaluation on the contribution of UN-Women, to increase women’s leadership and participation in peace and security and humanitarian response. Ambassador Sareer called on more wealthy countries to increase their contributions to the UN-Women to facilitate the commendable work undertaken by the Entity.
