UN Resident Coordinator remarks at Launch of UN Women Uganda Strategic Note 2022-2025

Hon. Minister Peace Mutuuzo,

Senior Government officials

Heads of Diplomatic Missions

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.  The theme for today’s launch is We Empower. I think this speaks not only to the work of UN Women, but also an aspiration for all partners in Uganda. I was delighted to see the powerful images of women in the reception – it gives hope that we are seeing women grow and move into spaces where they have been traditionally sidelined.

This is what we hope to and need to see going forward for Uganda to inclusively develop and achieve the aspirations of  the SDGs, as well as Uganda’s own planning instruments - NDP III and Vision 2040.

The UN system in Uganda recognizes and applauds the Government of Uganda for their commitment to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. Uganda has made important gains in recent years - including now 46% women in Cabinet - but of course on the road towards women's empowerment and our development aspirations,   many challenges remain, including violence against women, teen pregnancy, and women’s economic empowerment.

The UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2021-2025) was adopted in Uganda to pull together our collective actions towards Transformative and Inclusive Governance (SPI), Shared Prosperity in a Healthy Environment (SPII) and Human Well-being & Resilience (SPIII). As with UN Women’s Strategic Note – UN agencies have aligned their work in country around these Strategic Priority areas, which are in-turn aligned to the NDPIII and SDGs. Gender equality and women’s empowerment is core to the UN’s work – we cannot achieve sustainable development without it.  As such, our Cooperation Framework not only includes a dedicated outcome on gender equality and human rights, but these are also strongly mainstreamed across all other areas.

Advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment has been catalytic in bringing the UN together – for example through the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls, the Joint Programme on GBV/SRHR, and the joint programme to end child marriage, amongst others. The UN Country Team has identified advancing gender equality and eliminating gender-based violence as a key “flagship” area as we implement our Coorperation Framework.

UN Women plays a critical role in supporting the UN system on gender equality and women’s empowerment – I am pleased to see this coordination mandate recognized as a cross-cutting outcome in their Strategic Note. When UN Women reformed from UNIFEM in 2011, it was endowed with this specific coordination mandate.

As we look at the direction of the UN system in the context of UN reforms today, we are moving towards increased coherence towards our UN policy advive to Governments and cohenrence of our UN programmes and greater accountability for results.

That is very much what UN Women’s work aspires towards – supporting our UN policy & programme cohetence for greater results for women and girls across Uganda.

In Uganda, UN Women has provided innovative coordination support to my office at the sub-national level – UN women has been supporting the UN Area Coordination Teams. Our UNCT in Uganda is one of the first country teams in the world with a specific Gender-Parity Strategy and Action Plan, which will promote women’s leadership within the UN system in Uganda itself.

The nature and results of coordination work is not always visible and so can be poorly invested in. Coordination helps to minimize the conflicts, rivalries, wastages, delays and othet organisational problems. It is critical to improving efficiencies in the system and for improved results on the ground, on gender – and across all other areas –  to achieve greater results for our efforts.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Almost 20 years ago, the then Secretary General Kofi Annan noted ‘there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women’. These words, are as relevant today as ever and also serve as a reminder that for too long we have failed to fully utilize women’s empowerment as a tool for inclusive and sustainable development.

We have been making development progress. But we need much more. Women's empowerment is one of the keys towards that transformation we are seeking.

I hope in 20 years those who will come after us will find other quotes more relevant because so much progress will have been made.