January 23, 2019
UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is in Denmark to attend the annual consultations with the Danish Government.
A long-standing partner of UN Women gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, human rights and innovation, Denmark is also a key ally for advancing the youth agenda. Most recently, Denmark has supported the “African Girls Can CODE Initiative”, a joint programme of the African Union Commission (AUC), UN Women and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is providing digital literacy, coding and personal development skills to young girls in Africa through coding camps. In August 2018, the first of these coding camps brought together 80 girls from 34 African countries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
A meeting with the Crown Princess Mary Elizabeth of Denmark will be the first stop for the Executive Director, to discuss collaboration to advance gender equality as the year 2020 approaches, a pivotal year when a number of multilateral processes critical to women’s rights worldwide are marking their milestones and reviewing progress, including the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
In her meeting with Minister for Development Cooperation Ulla Tørnæs, State Secretary for Development Policy Trine Rask Thygesen, and other high-level ministers, the Executive Director will discuss Denmark’s new engagement strategy for UN Women (2018-2022), as well as provide updates on ongoing key initiatives.
Denmark was the fifth largest donor to UN Women’s core resources in 2017, which enabled UN Women to support a number of initiatives, such as facilitating women’s participation in the peace talks in South Sudan and women’s political participation in Kenya, establishing protection centres for women in Afghanistan and supporting women innovators and entrepreneurs around the world.
Going forward, Denmark will continue to support UN Women’s work on setting global norms, including by promoting women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, and efforts to ensure that women benefit equally from governance systems, as well as its mandate on coordinating UN-wide efforts to advance gender equality and improve its organizational effectiveness in the context of the ongoing UN reform.
Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka will also invite Denmark to join UN Women’s social mobilization efforts for the upcoming 25th year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which provides an unprecedented opportunity to engage youth in transformative dialogue and actions to generate irreversible progress for gender equality and sustainable development.