Speech by President of the Republic Tarja Halonen at the “Women for a Better World” Meeting in Valencia, 27 March 2010

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It is a great pleasure to be here in Valencia today. I would like to thank Spain, and especially Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, for organizing this event.

I am very pleased that Spain – as a first EU Member State ever – has chosen the promotion of gender equality and prevention of violence against women as priority areas during her Presidency of the European Union. This event shows that these issues are central in the EU’s relations with other regions and international organisations. I support this approach.

People’s security, human rights and well-being are undividable. We all have a joint responsibility for furthering them, and the United Nations is the most important forum in this work.

It is 30 years since the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was adopted. The Beijing World Conference on Women took place 15 years ago. The United Nations Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was adopted already 10 years ago.

In order to turn agreements into practice, we still need to work hard. Cooperation among women and women’s networks – such as this meeting – are vital to promote the implementation processes.

A year ago, Liberia and Finland co-convened the International Colloquium on women's leadership, empowerment and security. And after the Monrovia meeting, Finland and Liberia organised a side-event at the UN that focused on the implementation of Resolution 1325 and integrating gender aspects in climate negotiations.

We really must step up our efforts to implement Resolution 1325. A good start is that each country prepares a national action plan. We in Finland completed our own plan in 2008. Now we Finns are working together with Kenya – in a so-called twinning project – to help produce their action plan. It is a pilot project, which – I hope – will encourage others to cooperate, too.

Also, we should see that climate issue is very much a gender equality issue. Climate change will affect most severely the poorest people in the world, 70 percent of which are women. After Copenhagen, we are now heading towards Mexico and South Africa meetings. Hopefully, we will get a globally binding agreement. To increase the role of women in the process, Finland has supported least developed countries to send women delegates to climate negotiations by providing special funding for this.

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Next September, there will be a special meeting on the Millennium Development Goals at the UN in New York. Most of the goals concern women. And this is necessary. It helps to promote gender equality and, the other way around, empowerment of women is the key in achieving the goals.

Gender equality is a central element of a just society. Both men and women must have equal opportunities to acquire an education, to participate and to influence common issues. Equality strengthens democracy and promotes development and peace.

Conflict situations are hardest for all civilians, but especially for women and girls. Their human rights are at a particular risk and many women become subject to rape and brutal violence. In peace processes, women are too often left aside. But positive examples exist, too – in Africa and in Middle East, where Israeli and Palestinian women have worked together to support the peace process. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and I have supported this process together with the UNIFEM.

It is very important that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to appoint a special representative on sexual violence in conflict. I am very happy for Margot Wallström’s appointment.

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Women are the half of the population in the world. Let us make sure that all the people are involved in building a safer and more just world – and a better future for all of us.