The Pandemic’s Impact on Gender Equality

PHUMZILE MLAMBO-NGCUKA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, U.N. WOMEN:  Well, we are absolutely concerned. And we don’t think that the women of Afghanistan have to fight this just by themselves. This is a global problem. It needs global solidarity. The conference that we’re planning is to put on the platform issues of this nature that needs all of us to focus together on the issue.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Talk about more what we can expect out of this conference next week. Obviously, it’s a joint partnership that is sponsored between Mexico and France this year. What are your biggest initiatives and hopes, obviously, as the world still is battling through the pandemic?

MLAMBO-NGCUKA: Well, we are hoping to accelerate the implementation of the agenda for women, which was already slow even before the pandemic. What the pandemic has done has pushed it backwards. So we are hoping to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs, the Beijing platform, but this needs money. One of the biggest focus, therefore, for us is the fund- raising, is calling on private sector, on government, on philanthropists, on individuals to actually donate money that could help us to accelerate the implementation of this, because we sort of know now what needs to be done, where it needs to happen. But we just don’t have enough money, resources and resolve, which I must emphasize, to take this forward. So we need countries to choose policies that they will take forward, such as the Care Policy, which has not been there before. Thanks that the U.S. is taking this very seriously. But now we have a coalition of countries that are coming together that will push forward the care economy. We have gender-responsive policing, where we’re bringing together a cohort of countries that will be focused on gender-responsive policing. And we are also bringing in young people in a significant way, because, as you know, the majority of the people on Earth today are young people. If we do not put them in strategic places and support them to move forward, we will not have enough people going forward to take things forward.