Thank you Madame Vice Chair,
I am pleased to join you here today to honour the role of women in leadership, decision making and diplomacy.
Trailblazing women, in diplomacy, politics and governments, and women peacebuilders and activists, like those who we have heard from today, have striven and have made so much progress. Yet more progress is needed.
We know that women suffer disproportionately in conflict, with sexual violence, displacement, and impacts on their health and their livelihoods.
Yet for the most part, they don’t have a seat at the table to bring about peace, making up just 16 per cent of negotiators in processes led or co-led by the UN.
Yet, we know that when women are part of peace processes, the resulting agreement is more than three times more likely to succeed.
It is not just that women are not included, they are actively silenced and excluded, facing active obstruction to their participation with threats, violence and reprisals, including online.
We must challenge this and change it.
As penholder on the Women Peace and Security agenda at the UN Security Council, the UK is determined to champion women’s effective and safe participation in all spheres of decision making.
As we approach the 25th anniversary of the agenda, we must work together, women and our male allies, to promote and defend women’s and girls’ rights and actively resist the misogynist insurgency which seeks to roll back women’s hard-won advances.
