UN Women Executive Director to co-host Beijing+20 “Women in Power and Decision-Making” high-level event in Chile

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will make her first official visit to Chile this week to co-host a High-Level event on “Women in power and decision-making: building a different world,” with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Taking place from 27-28 February at Estaciόn Mapocho in Santiago, participants will include global women leaders, presidents, parliamentarians, businesswomen, UN and government representatives, activists and a Nobel Laureate.

President Bachelet, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will speak at the opening ceremony. This high-level meeting is one of the major Beijing+20 events being organized in all regions of the world to galvanize political commitment towards achieving gender equality.

Despite gradual progress over the years, the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights – remains hampered by a range of political, cultural, social and economic obstacles.

The high-level global meeting in Santiago will review the last 20 years in terms of achievements, what has changed as a result of having women in leadership positions, and what remains to be done to reach women's equal access to, and full participation in, power structures and decision-making.

A ‘Call for Action’ with a series of concrete recommendations is expected to be issued on the closing day of the Conference. This will be an important contribution to the 59th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW59), which will take place from 9-20 March at UN Headquarters in New York.

The two-day meeting will focus on a host of in-depth issues on leadership and participation, including: participants’ own paths to leadership, lessons learned over 20 years of women’s leadership, women leaders’ contributions to the construction of a more equal society, good practices to ensure women’s full and equal participation in decision-making, and strategies to accelerate the pace of change for women in power and decision-making. A full agenda of the meeting and participants is available here.

The Executive Director will arrive in Chile on 25 February and take part in a series of meetings with Government officials, including Heraldo Muñoz, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Claudia Pascual, Minister of Women and Gender Equality; and others, to discuss the women’s rights and women’s empowerment agenda. She will also meet with representatives of Chilean grass-roots and civil society organizations, and with the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, prior to the high-level event on Friday.