International Women's Day

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I, too, must start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for initiating this debate, and by congratulating all six of today’s maiden speakers for treating us to such inspiring and interesting maiden speeches.

I want to raise two questions about women and the United Nations. The first concerns Security Council Resolution 1325, about the role of women in peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction. This is an issue that I have raised in your Lordships' House before, because I have been concerned that the Government have not been doing all that they could do to help to implement the resolution—for example, by nominating sufficient well qualified women for specialist posts. I am pleased that the Government have published the national action plan on implementing the resolution, but several NGOs, not least the United Nations Association of the UK, still have concerns. One of these is the perceived lack of senior-level leadership behind the plan. Can the Minister reassure the House on that point? The second concern is about cross-departmental co-ordination, which is an obvious need. What mechanisms will be used to achieve this? Thirdly, can the Minister say what funding has been specifically allocated to backing the action plan?

The question of funding also lies at the heart of the second issue I want to raise—the resourcing of the new agency, UN Women, which the noble Baronesses, Lady Gould and Lady Kinnock, have mentioned. Leading NGOs, including UNA-UK and Voluntary Service Overseas, have called on the Government to clarify their position as a supporter of this new agency and to commit the resources which will allow it to fulfil its purpose. I strongly associate myself with these requests and ask the Minister to make it a matter of urgency to clear up this uncertainty over the financial viability of UN Women. The agency has, after all, only just been launched and provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the UN to improve the livelihoods of women around the world.

Despite the advances and advantages of life in the 21st century for all of us in this Chamber, globally 1,000 women still die each day in pregnancy or childbirth. Violence against women accounts for more deaths among women between 15 and 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. In Peru alone, a country with which I am proud to be associated on behalf of VSO’s projects on access to justice for victims of domestic violence, an astonishing 50 per cent of women and girls have been subject to violence during their lifetime—the majority of them when they were aged between 10 and 17. Only five months ago, there was a powerful joint statement by the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Development Secretary, declaring an expectation that the new agency, UN Women, would be,

“a beacon for strong, positive leadership to promote women's rights across the whole UN system”.

But we cannot expect only other Governments to provide UN Women with resources to fulfil that purpose. The sad truth is that it is already facing a shortfall of $300 million. Its target budget of $500 million is in any case only a fraction of the more than $3 billion allocated to UNICEF, and VSO for one has calculated that a more realistic budget would be at least $1 billion a year. Even that would still account for just 4 per cent of all UN spending.

I share VSO's view that the emphasis the coalition Government have placed on women and girls as target groups in development policy is to be warmly welcomed. But will the Minister today undertake to respond positively to the Godmothers campaign being spearheaded by VSO to secure an annual core funding commitment of £21 million from the UK Government to the new UN Women agency? That would represent just 0.2 per cent of the UK's overseas aid budget, so it cannot be dismissed as just an extravagant demand in times of financial restraint. It would show the kind of leadership that could help leverage similar commitments from other major donors.