International Women's Day

Baroness Prosser Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prosser]

At that point, I arise. I join all others in thanking my noble friend Lady Gould for placing this debate on our agenda for today and remembering that it is the 100th anniversary, which makes it even more important than it has been in any other year. I shall return to a subject that has been mentioned once or twice already.

The new UN Women agency came into life on 1 January. It was launched on 24 February by Michelle Bachelet, who was previously the President of Chile and is now the head of the agency. In her speech, she outlined in broad terms some of the areas of work for which the agency will take responsibility. She said:

“In addition to our role of mobilizing, coordinating and leveraging the efforts of others, UN Women will focus on five areas … Expanding women’s voice, leadership and participation … Ending violence against women … Strengthening women’s full participation in conflict resolution and peace processes … Enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and … Ensuring gender priorities are reflected in national plans and budgets, including capacity to support CEDAW reporting. I am determined that UN Women will offer a new dynamic to the global dialogue on gender equality, and bring new energy, drawing on multiple talents, and bringing together men and women from different countries and communities in a shared endeavour”.

When I read that, it sounded to me a bit like the global big society.

On 10 January in this House, I asked a Question which sought to elicit from Her Majesty’s Government their plans to provide financial support for the new agency. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who is in her seat, was nice in her response and very positive, but she did not mention anything about what sort of money could be expected.

Prior to my Question in January, in November 2010 in another place, a Question was asked about the possible expenditure and commitment to the new agency. The Minister in the other place replied that a decision would be made when the review of overseas aid expenditure was completed. That review was completed and published this week and we still have no word on the future funding of UN Women. In February, again in another place, the Minister advised that they were waiting now for the strategy to be agreed. While the UK is part of the executive council and that debate, I am confused as to why there continues to be a delay on announcing what our commitment will be.

Along with others, I welcome the Government’s publication, UK Aid: Changing Lives, Delivering Results. There is much in it that demonstrates a good commitment and it makes many worthy statements. For example, it says:

“We will … Help immunise more than 55 million children against preventable diseases … Save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies … Enable at least ten million more women to use modern methods of family planning by 2015”.

These are laudable statements which are agreed by all, but they cross over the commitments we have already agreed and signed up to under the millennium development goals, so there is nothing new about them.

My argument is that demonstrating a strong and good commitment to the umbrella agency of UN Women and bringing a global and overarching approach to our work is much more likely to achieve the goals stated both in UK Aid and outlined in the millennium development goals. So what is the Government’s financial commitment to UN Women going to be? The international community has recognised that there is a need for an annual budget of $500 million. The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, has already mentioned that that budget is currently $300 million short. The United Kingdom has traditionally given £21 million per annum to UNICEF, and I would argue, along with others, that that ought to be our contribution to UN Women.