Thank you, Secretary General Sinirlioğlu, for your presentation of the Annual Progress Report to the Permanent Council this afternoon.
Gender equality, empowering women in politics, and combatting all forms of violence against women and girls remain crucial to the OSCE’s comprehensive concept of security and stability. We appreciate the continued efforts to promote gender equality across all three OSCE dimensions, and to ensure meaningful and safe participation in all aspects of peace processes and conflict resolution.
The UK recognises the challenges faced by the organisation in promoting gender equality during the 2024 reporting period. As mentioned in your foreword to the Report, we are currently facing a significant global rollback in the rights of women and girls, and an increase in misogyny and discrimination both online and offline. This trajectory threatens hard-won progress and must be reversed.
Amid the challenging global and regional context, the OSCE has delivered some important initiatives during this reporting period to promote gender equality. The UK warmly welcomes the WIN programme’s continued support to women’s leadership and gender responsive humanitarian actions in Ukraine. We strongly appreciate the OSCE’s key role in implementing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, including through support to the development of National Action Plans. We commend the OSCE Networking Platform for Women Leaders Including Peacebuilders and Mediators for the work in promoting women’s active participation in peace and security efforts. The UK strongly believes that the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women – in all their diversity, and at all levels of decision-making and leadership – leads to more effective and sustainable outcomes during and after conflicts.
I would like to underline the UK’s appreciation for Finland’s continued focus on gender equality this year – including through hosting the Chairpersonship Conference on Gender Equality in May – and to recognise Malta’s efforts as Chair-in-Office in 2024. We reiterate the importance of gender equality being fully mainstreamed into this organisation’s work.
