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Statement By New York, 21 July 2005 Mr. President, On behalf of my delegation, let me, first of all, express my appreciation for and welcome the report of the Secretary General, as contained in document E/2005/54. The comprehensive nature of the report provides us not only with a clear picture of the progress made since 1997 but also highlights and analyses continuing gaps and challenges as well as identifies future action to bridge the gap between policy and practice. In this regard, my delegation applauds the significant progress made by UN entities and intergovernmental bodies in mainstreaming gender perspectives into all policies and programmes since 1997. Mr. President, We believe that there should be increased efforts in addressing serious continuing challenges including underdeveloped monitoring, reporting and accountability mechanisms, inadequate utilization of gender specialists, and insufficient capacity for gender analysis. From my delegation’s perspective, such challenges could be approached by putting greater effort to shift the organizational philosophy and institutional mindsets. The highest authorities in this regard should play a central role. My delegation therefore fully shares the need to strengthen commitment of senior and top managers to institutionalize gender mainstreaming by means of developing effective monitoring, reporting and accountability mechanisms. Furthermore, continuous training and learning is essential to raise awareness and expertise of all staff. In this connection, my delegation welcomes the efforts of the UN specialized agencies who have put in place improved accountability measures to ensure that senior management and staff at all levels undertake efforts to achieve gender mainstreaming in their work. Mr. President, It is equally important to build countries’ capacity to effectively measure progress in the implementation of international commitments that include gender components such as the Millennium Development Goals and Beijing Platform for Action. Indonesia in this regard, calls for greater support by the United Nations and donor agencies to build country capacity to produce and report gender related statistics as well as other kinds of statistics closely correlated with gender issues. My delegation particularly would like to commend efforts by various UN entities to publish a framework for gender analysis in its response to the tsunami disaster and to make available gender related materials in local languages. On the need to adopt action plans, my delegation is particularly concerned that only one fourth of responding entities have adopted action plans as gender mainstreaming implementation mechanisms. Such action plans are necessary not only to clarify and provide definitions and guidelines of gender equality and gender mainstreaming strategies and programmes, but also to establish lines of responsibilities and accountability for staff and management. This would also help considerably in reducing overlaps and promoting greater coordination between UN programmes and activities, including their work programme at country level. My delegation therefore, supports the Secretary-General’s recommendation to call on UN entities to adopt gender mainstreaming action plans which enables them to move beyond policy formulation towards implementation with specific timelines and results-based monitoring mechanisms. Mr. President, The upcoming High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly provides the opportunity to emphasize the importance of gender issue to the overall progress on the implementation of the MDGs. In this regard, my delegation strongly believes that progress on gender mainstreaming at UN level would certainly contribute to similar efforts at national level. On our part, all of us should exhibit our common responsibility by rendering our commitment, support and accountability at the highest level to accelerate the progress of implementation and to ensure that UN entities and intergovernmental bodies progressively address the remaining gaps and challenges. Thank you.
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