Mauritius - European Union 4th High Level Policy Dialogue on Gender

Honourable Mrs Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah, Minister of Gender Equality and Family Welfare;

Excellencies, colleagues of the EU Member States;

Gender Focal Points of Line Ministries;

Distinguished guests;

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour for me to co-host, together with the Honourable Minister, this fourth High Level Policy Dialogue on Gender.

Honourable Minister, I would like to thank you and your team for renewing your engagement and for making this dialogue an annual event. 

We are already in our fourth one now!

This bears testimony of our joint efforts to place gender equality and girls and women's empowerment at the top of our agenda.  This topic is also a world priority that is receiving growing international attention and this is very welcomed!

Overall while there has been some significant progress, achieved in advancing women's and girls' rights, no country in the world is totally on track to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030. 

This is unfortunately a real fact. At the same time, it is an extra motivation for us to do more and better. And this is more than ever the case today, since the COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the existing gender inequalities and threaten hard-won gains.

Worldwide the health and socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis have and are disproportionately affecting women and girls. 

The crisis has led to an increase in sexual and gender-based violence and discrimination; to a sharp decline in employment and livelihoods, including the right to accessing health services, and hamper inclusive economic growth.

These severe impacts on women and girls’ rights undermine the achievement of all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG5 on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

As a strong response to this situation, the European Union has commissioned a new Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in External Action 2021–2025 (referred to as Gender Action Plan III).

It aims to accelerate progress on empowering women and girls, and safeguard gains made on gender equality during the 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action.

Let me just quote our High Representative/Vice-President, Josep Borrell, who said: “Ensuring the same rights to all empowers our societies. It makes them richer and more secure. It is a fact that goes beyond principles or moral duties. The participation and leadership of women and girls is essential for democracy, justice, peace, security, prosperity and a greener planet. With this new Gender Action Plan, we are pushing for more and faster progress towards gender equality.” (end of quote).

The new Gender Action Plan focuses on key thematic areas of engagement; it includes fighting against gender-based violence and promoting the economic, social and political empowerment of women and girls. But it also puts a renewed emphasis on universal access to healthcare, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender equality in education, as well as on promoting equal participation and leadership. Furthermore it fully integrates the EU policy framework on Women, Peace and Security, and brings the gender perspective to new policy areas, such as the green transition and the digital transformation.

Minister, Ladies and gentlemen,

If we want to achieve progress on women and girls empowerment and analyse the extent to which we are promoting gender equality, we need to have the relevant tool to allow us to measure results.

Therefore, the GAP III adopts a new approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning, with a stronger focus on measuring results. Along with each thematic area of engagement, there are corresponding objectives and indicators to precisely measure progress.

I am glad to inform that today we are signing a new Joint Monitoring Framework covering the period 2021 – 2025 with a set of objectives and indicators to track progress on the achievement of SDG 5 on gender equality.

The Joint Monitoring Framework will be relevant notably for:

• the design of actions and programmes funded by the EU in favour of the Republic of Mauritius under the new Multiannual Indicative Programme (MIP) 2021 – 2027; and
• for monitoring, reporting and evaluation purposes.

I wish to remind that 5 years ago the European Union and the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family Welfare signed the 1st Joint Monitoring Framework for the period 2016 to 2020; it has been instrumental in triggering a number of actions from both the EU and Government sides in the promotion of gender equality and human rights. 

Let me just  name a few:

• technical assistance to the Ministry of Gender Equality for the elaboration of three important bills - the Gender Equality Bill, the Children's Bill and the Adoption Bill;
• capacity-building to all Gender Focal Points of line ministries on gender mainstreaming;
• assisting the Ministry in the elaboration of a National Action Plan on Gender Mainstreaming;
• support to the review of the Protection from Domestic Violence Act;
• and finally our Rise and Shine gender campaign, which aims at showing that when women and girls are empowered, it brings  benefits for all of us, for the whole of society.

Honourable Minister,

I am pleased to inform you that the signing of the Joint Monitoring Framework between European Union and your Ministry is considered as a unique and innovative approach on the implementation of the EU Gender Action Plan; my Delegation and thereby the Republic of Mauritius  was recognised and quoted as an example  by our Headquarters.

So I thank you and your team for the renewed commitment through this new Joint Monitoring Framework.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen,

We need to have stronger engagement on gender equality.

This is key to a sustainable global recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and for building fairer, more inclusive, more prosperous societies.

Women and girls are in the frontline of the pandemic and must be put in the driving seat of the recovery.

Together with our Member States, we want to work more closely with all our partners in building a truly gender-equal world.

To conclude, we wish to reaffirm our commitment to working with the Government of Mauritius to achieve real, tangible and lasting progress for women and girls’ empowerment; this will ensure that civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are enjoyed by all, free from discrimination, fear and violence in all its forms.

We reaffirm once more today – through this fourth Gender Policy Dialogue and the new Joint Monitoring Framework – our joint commitment to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and the gender-targets.

I thank you for your attention.