Townhall Meeting with the United Nations Secretary-General and Civil Society in the margins of the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69 Side Event)

Dear feminists, civil society, leaders, young people, women and girls, all of you present in this hall this morning, good morning. And thank you for joining us in what is not just a meeting. It is a reckoning at a time to take stock, to press forward, and to insist on the progress that justice and gender equality demands. A time to come together for all women and girls. This year, Secretary General, more than 3,600 CSOs have picked up their passes to be with us at this CSW69. This new record that was registered for this CSW69 shows your commitment and your drive forward for gender equality and women's empowerment. It is my honor to welcome the Secretary-General to the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to this vital conversation. We gather on the margins again of the 69th Commission on the Status of Women, but let it be clear. Gender equality has never belonged on the margins. It belongs at the center of every agenda, every decision, every future we dare to imagine, and so do women and girls. CSW this year is about history and urgency. 30 years since Beijing, 30 years since the world agreed that women's rights are human rights, a promise made, but not yet fully kept. Yesterday, Member States successfully adopted the political declaration for CSW. We have many gains to celebrate in that declaration. It is rooted in human rights, attuned to the realities women and girls face today. It calls for action on ending poverty, action on women, peace, and security, education, especially STEM, the gender digital divide, and the urgent need to revitalize this commission. It also connects us to the Pact for the Future, because gender equality must be part of shaping that future. These are not just steps forward. They are real wins, hard-fought, hard-won, and a foundation to push even further. But we must also be honest. This session takes place in a world on fire. Wars rage, women's rights are under attack, civic space for feminist activism is shrinking, and in some places, hard-fought gains are slipping away. But we are fighting back. You, civil society, in all your diversity, are leading the charge and are our inspiration. Secretary General, our feminist in chief, your leadership has been a steadfast force in this fight. I thank you for making this town hall a priority year after year. If I may, Secretary General, I will now invite you to share your remarks.

Friends, let me begin with two simple words: thank you. In these difficult times, civil society is on the front lines, putting it all on the line to power progress, deliver gender equality, and build a better world for us all. And I stand with you now and always. And it is my privilege to be with you today, to hear your solutions, your innovations, and your ideas, and how we can advance our shared aims. Dear friends, this year’s Town Hall is a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and of the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. Yet, we are also here to issue a red alert. A surge in misogyny and a furious kickback against equality threaten to slam on the brakes and push progress into reverse. Let me be clear. This is unacceptable, immoral, and self-defeating. We must stop it, and we must stop it together. Dear friends, in the 30 years since Beijing, we have seen advances in maternal health, girls' education, and more. Last year, countries agreed to the Pact for the Future. And this reaffirms the commitment to achieve gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls. It recognizes this is essential for progress across the Sustainable Development Goals. And it sets out to strengthen the Commission on the Status of Women. Women's organizations and civil society play a major role in securing those gains in the preparation of the Summit of the Future, and I applaud your efforts. Yet women and girls still face an appalling array of wrongs. We see it more than anywhere else in Afghanistan. We see it in the sexual violence in conflicts from Haiti to Sudan. And we see it in the global pandemic of violence against women and girls, and their disproportionate poverty, anger, and marginalization. The dramatic dangers facing social organizations and activists are both a symptom and the cause of this disease. Around the world, women's rights defenders face harassment, threats, and violence, even murder. They face shrinking civil space and shrinking funds, and the result is the erosion of rights and a deficit of accountability. Despite your courage and persistence, women and girls' interests are increasingly unrepresented and unheard when decisions are made, and we must turn this around. You are the drivers of progress. Our world needs you, and we can be absolutely sure that I will fight at your side, and I will fight for you. All of these challenges are playing out against a backdrop of global woe. Conflict, climate disasters, and the debt crisis threaten equality and women's rights. New technologies, which could advance equality, to often inflame divides and normalize violence. And around the world, a ferocious backlash against the rights of women and girls is growing in power and strength, stripping women of their rights, rolling back progress, and causing leaders to drop equality like a stone. My warning to leaders of all kinds is simple: Do not sacrifice equality for false expediency. It is a miscalculation, a misunderstanding of how societies thrive. It is short-sighted. It is wrong, and it must end. And to these leaders staying strong, I say thank you. You are doing the right thing. And so, dear friends, let's never forget that inequality is a question of power. We still live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture. And power is never given, it must be taken. Together, we must seize it. And for those that ask how, the answer lies in this room: energy, commitment, and determination. All of us who care about equality must come together, organize and mobilize to push the world to deliver, with every one of us playing our part. The United Nations system has reached and sustained gender parity at leadership level, and we continue to take system-wide actions through our Gender Equality Acceleration Plan. And this is boosting the capacity of the UN system to deliver for gender equality and the rights of women across the board. And it includes strengthening support for civil society participation and opening up financial opportunities for grassroots women's organizations. As a global feminist movement, we must come together and push for action in critical areas. We must push countries and governments to prioritise investments in equality for women and girls, and to deliver on their commitments in the Pact for the Future to create a surge in finance for sustainable development. We must push for greater support for women’s rights organisations, and we must push for action to tackle misogyny online and close the gendered digital divide. by delivering on the Global Digital Compact agreed last year. One of the biggest threats in our struggle for gender equality is the fact that there is a clear male predominance in areas like technology, engineering, and mathematics. And this can be seen in many of the algorithms that are produced by the technology industry being biased, biased against women. And this is something that we must consider a fundamental priority in this question of power relations. Power relations in the new technologies areas must change, and gender equality must prevail also in the new technologies areas. We must push We must push all parties to ensure women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation in peacebuilding to create more enduring solutions. And we must push to advance women’s leadership and involvement in decision-making in government and businesses. Dear friends, in these days of danger, civil society is the driver that makes the difference. And we proudly stand in the United Nations with all those women's rights defenders around the world demanding equality, demanding your rights, and ensuring that women and girls are heard and holding leaders to their word. We share a common vision: a world of equality, where the human rights of women and girls are realized in full. Let's keep working together to make this vision of gender equality a reality for all. Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary General, for your powerful remarks. And now I will turn to civil society for your reflections and most importantly, your solutions and your recommendations for how we can push forward together. And also, if you have some questions, I'm sure the Secretary General would welcome those as well. This is your moment, civil society, to shape the conversation, to bring forward the ideas that will guide us, and to propose the steps we must take to drive real, meaningful change. We will take speakers in sets of three. Please keep your interventions sharp, bold, and focused so that as many voices as possible are heard. This town hall is more than a tradition. It is a commitment to listen, to engage, to act with a clear focus on finding solutions that move us forward. And the fact that it takes place here, in the most hallowed chamber of the United Nations, the UN General Assembly Hall, makes this discussion most vital and most important for this commitment. This is the people's hall, your hall, where as women and girls and people of the world, you make your voices heard. And this engagement in this hall is our shared pledge to act together for rights, equality, and empowerment of all women and girls. I now open the floor for interventions. I will invite the following three speakers to address us. First, the floor goes to Olivia Ivy Altidore, a spoken word poet. Olivia, the floor is yours.

Thank you. We live in a world so beautiful, but how beautiful can this world really be? Marginal divide, girls losing their lives, and there are people out on those streets. The foundation of our nation stands before us, towering and intimidating, daunting the possibility of equality, the dream of these United Nations. But girls being underpaid and overworked deserves bigger conversations. The framework of girlhood, so finely cut and clear, often puts girls in a box with its translucent locks, instilling us all with fear. Fear that we won't grow past the bounds of those margins, that we'll stay hidden in our fenced away gardens. But this is all the more reason to fight, because even a blooming flower still grows at night. The waters are murky. The road is not promised to be easy nor fair. But how do you expect us to succeed if you don't give us access to the resources we need? We, the people of these United Nations, refuse for girls' stories to be brushed over to the side right before our eyes. We deserve to be heard, each and every word, and together, we shall rise. We live in a world so beautiful, but how beautiful can this world really be? Everything falls apart and then into place. It is our job to advocate for change and keep up with the pace. We live in a world so beautiful, but how beautiful can this world really be? If no one answers these questions, change is not a guarantee. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Olivia, for this beautiful, inspiring poem to kick us off this morning. Thank you so much for being here as well. I now go to someone you all know very well, Pamela Morgan, the co-chair of NGO CSW. Pamela, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Your Excellencies, feminists, respected delegates, esteemed guests, good morning. NGO CSW New York, with no financial resources, but with passion and a determined group of volunteers, is a convener of civil society. We accomplish our work through partnerships to make tangible commitments to civil society. Ours is a solution-oriented organization, and we understand that optimally, a trilateral process works best for us when we are working with the UN and its agencies and member states. A great example of this method is our recent work on CSW revitalization, where we have hosted roundtable discussions with member states, as well as engaged in productive discussion with UN Women around this critical issue. We began this process with a survey of our civil society partners to determine how they reimagined the Commission on the Status of Women. We worked with the member state to share our survey analysis with the UN community. Further, we conducted polls during our monthly meetings to further assess civil society's assessment of CSW revitalization. To this end, we were able to develop recommendations. Our recommendations are divided into two areas: CSW revitalization and process recommendations, which include requiring accountability from all CSW stakeholders, promoting local, national, regional, and global collaboration through greater inclusion and linkage of UN gender mechanisms, including the Beijing Platform for Action, Beijing+30 reviews, CSW Agreed Conclusions, CEDAW, women, youth, peace, and security, and UN special rapporteurs. And we welcome, in welcoming the critical leadership roles that civil society organizations play and will continue to play in advancing gender equality and the rights of women and girls. CSW revitalization and CSW content recommendations include mandate violence against women, gender-based violence, and women in power and decision-making both be standing items for review and action and CSWs for progress and advancement, mandating that women and armed conflict will be a CSW priority theme, recognizing emerging issues such as artificial intelligence, science, technology, engineering, art, and math, STEAM, cybersecurity, ethics and safety, and their impact in all decision making. We want you to address the intersectional impact of the climate crisis and disaster on food, water, energy, air insecurity, health, economic, environmental impacts, trafficking, and population displacement. And finally, prioritizing regular review of women and girls' poverty, addressing and reversing economic and financial gender biases, and institutional practices, and mandating inclusion and leadership in finance. A copy, excuse me, of our recommendations has been formally submitted to UN Women. So our question is simple: How can we ensure that our preferred method of working triadually can be employed, so our civil society developed recommendations will be seriously considered for implementation, excuse me, and an attempt to make CSW fit for purpose, as stated in the Pact for the Future. Thank you.

Thank you very much, dear Pamela, and thank you to the NGO CSW for all you do. I will give now the floor to Mufida Haider, a youth leader and the senior regional program coordinator with Restless Development. Mufida, you have the floor.

Thank you. Excellencies, Secretary General, UN Women Executive Director, Chief of Cabinet, and fellow advocates. Half of the world's population is under 30, the largest generation in history. Yet we inherit deepening inequalities, authoritarianism, climate change, shrinking civic spaces, genocides, and conflicts that threaten our futures. We stand on the shoulders of the Beijing Declaration, yet young feminist movements remain underfunded, excluded, and unheard, even as we drive frontline change. If we are to build a just and equitable future, our voices must be at the forefront, not as tokens, but as true partners in shaping our world. To build a just and equitable future, we must address three critical priorities. First, Revitalizing and decentralizing CSW through structural transformation by fully resourcing regional consultation, removing visa barriers, ensuring accessible language services, and implementing transparent accountability to transform commitments into real progress, and institutionalizing meaningful youth leadership. True inclusion requires co-creation, dedicated funding, and decision-making power for young people at every level. Second, ensuring unrestricted, sustainable funding for young feminist movements. Third, centering young people living in conflict and under occupation. The realities of war, occupation, and displacement disproportionately impact young women and gender diverse youth, yet their voices are often excluded from peacebuilding and humanitarian decision-making. Their voices are essential to achieving sustainable and equitable solutions. Our diverse experiences cannot be fully represented in one voice, but I am here to reaffirm our collective demand: fund us, include us, protect us. If we are truly committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and fulfilling the Beijing Declaration, investing in young feminist leadership is indispensable. We stand ready to co-create the future we deserve. Thank you.

Thank you, Mufida. Indeed, investing in young feminist leadership is the solution at this point. So I'm going to turn back to our Feminist-in-Chief. Back to you, Secretary General.

Well, first of all, let me say that the fantastic poem, but at the same time plan of action, that we heard from our friend, Ms. Olivia, is something that gives us more strength in our struggle to guarantee gender equality in the world. Sometimes, poetry is also a weapon, and is a weapon that can change the hearts of those that are more enabled to understand that without full gender equality, the world will not be okay. So thank you very much for your fantastic message. Ms. Pamela, you have presented a complete based on your survey, a complete plan of action. And I would say that there was nothing in what you indicated that I do not agree with. But, of course, you asked a question about how the other actors can guarantee that this plan of action is taken seriously and moves forward. I cannot respond for all of the other actors, namely for governments, even if we are fighting hard to change some more stubborn ones. But I can respond for what we are trying to do. And the understanding that we were not doing enough in relation to gender equality led to our Gender Equality Acceleration Plan. and to review our UN Plan of Action on Gender Equality. And we also did a survey to see to what extent our different agencies were responding to the orientation and to demands that we have provided to them in order to accelerate our action. And I will give you the results of our survey. According to that survey, 91% of United Nations entities are reporting regularly on their consultations with civil society and women's organizations to inform programming and intergovernmental processes. 86% of responding United Nations entities ensure the participation of organizations representing women and girls in the strategic engagements and convenings. But of course, we must make this participation much more meaningful. 74% provided technical assistance to Intergovernmental Forum in 2024 in relation to gender equality. And finally, 25% of the entities provided direct funding to local women's organizations working on women, peace and security and on humanitarian crisis contexts. But let's be clear: the Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund raised 100 million US dollars since 2023 for this purpose, which is completely insufficient to support adequately the civil society. So, I have to say that one of the central problems that we face is that with the decrease in ODA and the decrease in humanitarian and development cooperation funds, the most dramatic one being the recent of the USAID, The support to women's organizations has been dramatically decreasing, and what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean of the needs. But I can guarantee that we take very seriously all your recommendations, and that we are pushing all our organizations within the UN system in order to work more closely with you and in order to be able to support your action in a much more effective way. Finally, I would like to say that I am in full agreement with what was said by our youth representative, Mufida. What you said corresponds exactly to what we think needs to be done, and we congratulate you on the very precise and strong message that you conveyed to us all.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Secretary General, for your responses. I think they are also inspirational to all of us and to all those speakers and to all those listening in this room. So thank you very much again and again. I would like to welcome all those who just joined us in the balcony, most welcome to this important civil society space, so welcome. And now we move to the baskets part. I think you remember from last year, and now we have a baskets part every year. So we have the baskets. I will try to ensure that I get voices from every part of the room, and we'll pull the cards from the different baskets. When I call out your names, Please look for the closest microphone to you. There are five microphones on the main floor and near the mezzanine. My colleagues who are near the microphones are standing up, so you can locate the closest one to you, and please speak from there. If you are not able to move to the mic, we will ensure that the mic moves to you. So, let us start now with the mezzanine. I'm going to pull three cards from the basket. I will read the names and the organization, and we'll ask you to speak. Do you want to pull the cards? Okay, so I have three names here. Linda Sestok, CFUN, Canadian Federation of university women, and Maria Reeves, and Majda or Magda, I can't read the last name, from OutRight International. So, we start with Linda. Linda, please. Linda.

All right, good morning, everyone. My name is Linda Sestok. I'm with the Canadian Federation of University Women. I just want to mention that we come from Canada, where we have recently learned how easily it is to see alliances shift from one day to the next. My question today, how do we get heard at the government level? When will civil society observers be integrated into CSW negotiations? Thank you.

The 2nd speaker is Maria. Please, Maria, you have the floor.

Hello and good morning, everyone. My name is Mariah Reeves, and I am from Iowa in the United States in the Midwest, and I am an educational leader. a co-ed institution of about 3,000 students, and I have the honor of five high school young women with me today, and I would like to allow their voices to be elevated in this time, to ask questions about access for rural girls in education, and to have opportunities to pursue post-secondary educational endeavors that they wish to see. And I would like to just encourage the continued fight for equitable access for girls and women in educational spaces in the United States, especially in this political climate that we currently exist within, asking for voices to be heard of our young women to be able to access educational opportunities in rural spaces and places in the U.S. Thank you.

Thank you, Mariah. And now we have our third speaker, Magda, Majda. Please.

Thank you so much. My name is Magda Rakita. I'm originally from Poland. I work in Europe, and I'm an intersex woman. Girls and women like me, especially little children, face really challenges, condition, and violation of human rights across the globe. In some regions, we deal with infanticide when the child is born with a body which is not deemed to be typical enough to be female or male. In other regions, we are subjected to involuntary and completely unnecessary medical treatments to make our bodies more typical. This doesn't affect us only then, it has profound effect on our mental health, physical health, it has effect on our families, especially our mothers. Over 30% of mothers of intersex children have post-traumatic stress syndrome. We are nearly a year now from historic declaration the UN in Geneva on intersex rights. We are waiting for a report to be published later this year, probably in September. But what I'm trying to say here, to encourage all of you to meaningfully engage with people like me and our experiences and our families. This is what really changes our lives. And it's not some other It's just a taboo. We don't talk about this. It's shameful, and we always risk being ostracized from our societies and communities. So this is really a call to action for all the wonderful organizations here. Please engage with the intersex subject. We are everywhere. UN estimates that there is 1.7% of people are born with intersex traits. So, you probably actually know us. We are just too ashamed and too afraid to say who we are. Thank you.

Thank you very much to the three speakers. I would now turn to the Secretary General for responding. So, Secretary General, the floor is back to you.

The first intervention by Ms. Linda on how can we guarantee that governments hear us. I think the situation is worse. Very different from country to country. There are countries where there are institutional mechanisms for the voice of women's movement to be taken into account when policies are formulated, and when the questions of gender equality are discussion, or when the sustainable development goals are discussed. And there, it's, of course, to make use as much as possible of these instruments. But in many circumstances, those instruments are either nonexistent or just, I would say, to pretend that there is an auscultation of women's movements, but obviously without any attention being played. And these, you enter in exactly the sentence that I just said a few minutes ago when I said, well, power is never given. It needs to be taken. I mean, in those situations, the only way is for women's movements to mobilize themselves as much as possible, to use social media as much as possible, to create as much as possible embarrassing situations for the political power in relation to the public opinion and in relation to other, I mean, to the world at large, because, I mean, They will only hear you if you shout loud enough, and to shout loud enough, you need to organize yourselves in a very effective way and use as much as possible the tools and instruments that technology today puts at our disposal, independently, of course, of the traditional forms of demonstration that exist for civil society everywhere in the world since the past. So, my advice is, if the government is not listening, organize yourselves in a way that the shouting is louder and that they will pay a price if they don't listen to you, namely, electorally. I cannot agree more in relation to what was said by Ms. Maria Rivas about education and in rural environments. Of course, the U.S. is a country where the access to education is much more generalized than many developing countries in the world. And indeed, a central question in gender equality is full women access to education at all levels. And, as I said, now with a particular priority to make sure that in the areas of science, technology, mathematics, physics, women match the number of men involved, because these are the areas that largely, because of artificial intelligence, will shape the way our societies work. So we cannot allow men to be dominant in these aspects of education and science to be developed. But of course, rural areas are the most difficult. What I strongly advocate is to, normally rural areas have an important electoral weight, is to use as much as possible the political mechanisms of intervention in order to make sure that those that run your states will pay a price if they don't pay enough attention to the rural areas. And that price, of course, is translated itself in losing elections. Now, I cannot do anything else but to express my deep solidarity to our friend Ms. Magda and to to say that I fully understand, I fully absorbed your call to action, and you can count from our side total support for whatever initiatives you might consider that the UN, and in particular UN Women, can take in this regard. So thank you very much for your testimony that is extremely important.

Thank you, Secretary General. Now we will move to the main floor, and again I will pull three cards from the basket. Oh, so many. One. I have three names now. The first is Grace Forrest from Walk Free. The second is Jing Zhao Zesan from the World Women Organization, and from Good Neighbors International, Huang Chao. So we start with Grace. Grace, you have the floor.

Good morning. Thank you for having us. My name is Grace Forrest, and I'm the founding director of Walk Free. We are an international human rights organization focused on the eradication of modern slavery in all its forms in our lifetime. Secretary-General, I have a question for you. In the light of the fact that there has been a 10 million person increase to the number of people living in modern slavery throughout the globe in the last five years, bringing the total now to 50 million people living in modern slavery, impacting women and girls in every country in the world, I ask you: how can we get Member States and UN agencies to better collaborate for these transnational issues affecting global supply chains, migration systems, and human rights everywhere?

Thank you, Grace. We move now to Jing from the World Women Organization, please.

Hello, my name is Grace Hollett from the Canadian Federation of University Women, the same organization as Linda Sestak just spoke for. And we're deeply committed to the equality of all women and girls, and we work primarily in Canada, but also internationally, particularly recently in Nepal. And we are very, very pleased to be here with so many women from all around the world. And our question, my question is, how can we promote the equality of all women, all girls throughout the world? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And now we move to Hyang from Good Neighbors International.

Hello, my name is Hyang Cho from Good Neighbors International. So Good Neighbors International is a humanitarian organization work across the 50 countries. We work closely with the girls and women. So from 50 countries, we promote the girls' right, especially focus on the menstrual hygiene and also women's health. So we are a grassroots organization, so we collect a lot of information regarding the women's health and especially menstrual hygiene. So my question is, though, so a lot of organizations work closely with the community and girls, and those data are available. However, how UN is going to integrate those kind of valuable data to improve the women's health? Thank you.

Excuse me, can you please repeat “how the UN” because I couldn’t understand very well what you said? How the UN?

Maybe I just speak too quickly. So how UN is integrate those kind of value of datas from the grassroot organizations?

Integrate the data. The data. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Back to you, Secretary General, please.

The first question was related to the questions of human trafficking. I must say that one of my biggest frustrations is that we have not yet been able, and we have an organization that is particularly specialized in these areas, which is UNODC, and we were never able to make governments provide the same kind of funding. the same kind of cooperation, exchanging intelligence, and the same kind of effective action on the field against gangs, we never manage to have the same attention for human trafficking that exists for drug trafficking. And to be honest, the only explanation for me, and this is a battle that I have since I was in politics many years ago, the only explanation for me is that those that are powerful and those that have power of decision are afraid that drugs might enter their houses and impact their children, and do not believe that their children will be trafficked, because trafficking usually is in relation to very poor children and very poor women in marginalized situations or forced to move. And so, I mean, as their voice is much less strong than the voice of those that are linked to the need to fight against drug trafficking, we never manage to have governments providing the same level of resources and the same level of international cooperation for human trafficking, modern slavery than for the questions of drug trafficking. And I think this is something that we all need to unite in making sure that we speak loud and clear to all governments to understand that the worst of the traffics, the most horrible of the traffics, is when that traffic is a traffic involving human beings. And, of course, drug trafficking is important, weapons trafficking is important, but the traffic of human beings is indeed the most shameful thing that exists in our world. And we will do our best to go on to put that in the agenda with at least the same level of investment and the same level of intervention as in relation to drug trafficking. And unfortunately, our organization linked with that was one of those that was more dramatically defunded in the recent reduction of funds for humanitarian action. How can we promote equality for all women and girls in the world? I think that is exactly what we are doing, is to join our efforts and to make our voices be as loud as possible, to organize ourselves globally as effectively as possible, and to make sure that we force those that have power to understand that gender equality is a basic condition not only for the rights of women to be respected, it's a human right, but gender equality is an effective instrument for better, sustainable development for more peace and for the solution of most of the problems that today impact on humankind. So, the answer is not an easy answer. It is, I would say, bringing together everything we try to do and accelerating it and enhancing it. How do we incorporate data of grassroots organizations? Let me be very clear: not well. We have now a new data strategy that is part of the so-called UN 2.0, and the truth is that the UN produces a lot of data. But the UN has been, until now, very ineffective, both in using its own data and being able to gather data from grassroots organizations. So, to your question, what if we are doing, in this regard, an effective work, my sincere answer is no. We are not doing enough. We are not effective in gathering grassroots organization data. And we have, it's part of our data strategy to correct that.

It's 11 o'clock almost, and I will invite the Secretary General for final reflections. Unless, Secretary General, you would like another round.

I think we can have another round.

Perfect. So we will have another round. Thank you, Secretary General, for always giving us the time.

For me, the most important of this session is not to speak, it's to listen. And so I would encourage you not to ask questions, but to tell us what, in your opinion, we are not doing well, how can we improve, and to give us suggestions for us to be able to better deliver in relation to this common cause of gender equality that unites us all.

Okay, I have three cards now, and I think we need to, as Secretary General said, try to give us not questions, but solutions. So let's call this final round, the solutions round. So I'm gonna start with Dr. Carmela Roybal, and then we move to Catherine Oxholm from United Nations Foundation, and then to Solange Simoes from the Women and Feminist Organization. So we start with Dr. Carmela.

Thank you. I put the respect to you, Secretary General. My name is Dr. Carmela Roybal from Okeechobee in New Mexico, representing the indigenous people of North America and globally. I'm here today on behalf of Women Graduates USA. My suggestion is to build a fabric of data that we can create actionable solutions. And the solution that I would like to see is attention to the missing and murdered indigenous women of the world, the globe, our sons, our daughters. Emily Pike, say her name. Our children are missing, and we are doing a horrific job of drawing attention to the ecocide and femicide globally. We don't have a future without our children. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Carmela. We move now to Catherine Oxholm from the UNF.

Hello, thank you so much for allowing me to speak. And apologies that I did have a question, so let me rephrase it. Working at the United Nations Foundation, it is such a wonderful place that works on the sustainable development goals, but noting the change that is currently happening not only within the US, but within a lot of the countries around the world, and especially with the rights of women and girls, There have been so many substantial gains, but fierce gaps and backlash, and currently the removal of a lot of those rights. While it's not a question, what advice would you give young people on how they can protect the gains that were made while we can also move to make more progress? Is that possible?

Thank you very much, Catherine. And now I move to Solange from the Sociologists for Women in Society. Please.

So my name is Solange Simoes, and I represent Sociologists for Women in Society. So you asked us not to actually ask questions, but maybe place suggestions. I'd like to place a demand that I think has been a demand for many, many years from women and families from all over the world: When are we finally going to have the first woman, female UN Secretary General.

Well, well, well, back to the Secretary-General.

Do you want me to say something?

No, it's fine. Well, if I may say, Secretary General, we always say that silence is more eloquent than words. And I think the Secretary General agrees.

Well, I would like to underline first what was said by Dr. Carmela. We are finally witnessing in the world a recognition of the extremely important role that indigenous communities play in order to preserve our planet and in order to preserve our global societies. They have been discriminated, they have been marginalized, in some situations in the world, they were exterminated. But now, when we see how climate change is moving, when we see how the environment is destroyed, we all of a sudden discovered that the areas that are better protected, the areas where the harmony between nature and people is more effective, are exactly the areas under the control of indigenous people. But those areas are areas that also attract economic interests, mining industries, oil industries, others. And we are seeing more and more pressure put in relation to indigenous communities and more forms, unfortunately, of violence against them in very dramatic ways. And the testimony that we heard is a description of a reality that is a shame, that we need to be able to correct. We have every year, during two weeks, a gathering of indigenous communities from all over the world. But let's be honest, we have not been doing enough. And we need to give indigenous communities much more political power within their countries and globally in order to protect their interests and to protect their lives, and to help us protect the planet. I mean, we are witnessing a pushback in relation to women's rights. It's true, as we are witnessing a pushback in relation to climate, and we are witnessing a pushback in relation to many other aspects. There is only one way to answer a pushback, is to push back against the pushback. and to mobilize as much as we can the societies in order for the societies to protect their vital interests. And gender equality is a vital interest, and we need to do everything to mobilize societies against those that are trying to push back on gender equality. And young people can play here a very important role. I mean, I was born in a dictatorship. And I have to tell you that one of the things that had a bigger influence in the fall of that dictatorship, beyond, of course, the essential factor that was the colonial war and the fact that the army got tired and then there was a coup d'état, but one of the areas that undermined more the dictatorship was the mobilization of young people in the universities and across the country. Young people, you need to mobilize and we need to fight for your ideals, and gender equality is a basic ideal for all of us. Now, I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I'm not a woman. And obviously, when I was elected, one thing I could not do was to become a woman, but one thing I could do, and I believe I did, was to act decisively against routine and to promote an effective mechanism of gender parity for the UN. Because, as I said, the question is essentially a question of power. And if we have women in positions of power within the organization, you really change things. And now we have 53% of women and 47% of men in the senior management positions of the UN, USGs and ASGs. When we started, women were less than 40%. The Resident Coordinators, that are the leaders of the UN at country level, today are also 53% of women and 47% of men. Women were less than 40% when we started. And progressively, we have the objective to reach full gender parity in 2028. Getting closer, I think we are at globally at 44% at the present moment. As you know, the level of parity is when we reach 47 or more, but 47 is the minimum for gender parity. And we are moving more or less 1% per year globally in relation to the UN staff. So I am convinced we already reached gender parity at professional staff. I'm convinced that we will get in 2028 to full gender parity in the UN, with one possible exception, which are the field locations. namely in areas like Afghanistan, DRC, and many others, where we still are only with 35% of women in relation to our staff. And it's very difficult to make progress in those areas. But globally, this is more than compensated by more women than men in non-peacekeeping remote locations. Globally, I believe we are on track to get to full parity in 2028, and we already have three years in which we maintained full gender parity in the areas of responsibility of the UN. So, I'm not a woman, but I fought to make sure that women had a decisive role in the power within this organization. And obviously, I have to say that it was not necessary to do anything of positive discrimination. The only thing women need is the plain level field, is equality of opportunities. And when women understood that the doors were really open, we started to have fantastic women candidates. And we never had to choose a woman against a man that we thought was better to move into gender parity. Because today, in public administrations, the truth is, as we have more women than men in universities, coming out of universities, in most of the world. And some of the men that have better positions in universities go to the private sector. The truth is, competing to the public administrations, we now have a situation in which we have more competent women than competent men competing for these positions. So the only thing we need to do is to guarantee that the system works in an equitable way, and if the system works in an equitable way, gender parity becomes a reality. If the system works based on prejudice, based on -- there is a famous sentence that I remember when I fought many years ago for gender parity in the political party where I was, and this was 30 or 40 years ago. which was the answer of the men, of course, completely dominated at the time, and they were saying, "We have nothing against women, provided they are competent." And I used to answer them something which, of course, you cannot use. It was to say, "Look, there will only be perfect equality when incompetent women will also have positions of responsibility, because there are lots of incompetent men in positions of responsibility." But that is not what has happened in the U.A. I think we reached gender parity at top level based on competence. And I hope that those that will choose the next Secretary-General will be wise.

Do you want to have any more to say, Excellency?

Well, you know, our feminist in chief is the first one who told us that we should all work together to dismantle the patriarchy. And the other thing is that, yes, under his leadership, we are on track to achieve gender equity within the United Nations. So we really want to thank him on your behalf. Secretary General, thank you very much for being with us today and for giving us this wonderful time with you. And thank you, everyone who is here in this wonderful hall, for this great morning. Thank you so much, and we look forward to seeing you again next year. Thank you.