United Nations A/S-23/PV.4 General Assembly Official Records Twenty-third special session 4th meeting Tuesday, 6 June 2000, 3 p.m. New York President: Mr. Gurirab ............................................. (Namibia) In the absence of the President, Mr. Baali shortcomings and to look ahead to a future course of (Algeria), Vice-President, took the Chair. action in order to be able to honour the commitments we made five years ago. The meeting was called to order at 3 p.m. Due to the increased economic and financial vulnerability of our commodity-based small economy, Agenda items 8 and 9 (continued) the Government of Suriname was forced to reduce its spending, including expenditure related to the social Review and appraisal of progress made in the sectors, which had a negative impact on women and implementation of the twelve critical areas of children. This was compounded by new trends in concern in the Beijing Platform for Action international cooperation, shaped by globalization, the emergence of trade blocs, the perils of trade Further actions and initiatives for overcoming liberalization and the diversion of resources to only a obstacles to the implementation of the Beijing few countries and regions. Despite these constraints, Platform for Action Suriname has succeeded in implementing projects in The Acting President: I call on Mrs. Yvonne almost all the areas of the Beijing Platform for Action, Ravales-Resida, Minister for Regional Affairs and including strengthening its partnership with national Minister of Justice and Police of Suriname. and international funding agencies and national non- governmental organizations, as well as the United Mrs. Ravales-Resida (Suriname): The Nations agencies, all of which have contributed to the Government of Suriname salutes the President of the implementation of projects for the advancement of General Assembly and is pleased to see him presiding women. over this historic review conference. We are convinced that his leadership will guarantee us a successful We are also participating in the Inter-American outcome. Commission of Women/Organization of American States regional action plan, as well as the regional We also take great pride in participating in this action plans of the Caribbean Community and the gathering, since it gives us an opportunity to reflect on Economic Commission for Latin America and the the manner in which Suriname has kept its promises Caribbean (ECLAC), and there is an agreement with with regard to the implementation of the Beijing the Dutch-speaking Caribbean — Aruba and the Platform for Action. Netherlands Antilles — on gender issues. In formulating our national report on the review Since 1999 our National Gender Bureau has of this programme, we had the opportunity to evaluate carried out, in partnership with the United Nations our achievements, to consider the obstacles and This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the interpretation of speeches delivered in the other languages. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room C-178. Corrections will be issued after the end of the session in a consolidated corrigendum. 00-46529 (E) ````````` A/S-23/PV.4 Development Fund for Women, a programme entitled ECLAC. This first Gender Plan will be submitted to the Women and Sustainable Human Development, with a Government for approval. view to promoting leadership, economic empowerment Furthermore, a translation into our national and human rights for women. Furthermore, the staff of language of the Beijing Platform for Action has been the National Gender Bureau was increased, and we distributed to all libraries and Government institutions, have made and are still making a strong and sustainable including the libraries of non-governmental link to non-governmental organizations by establishing organizations. Information on gender issues is networks and are at present in the process of setting up becoming known through a monthly page in the local a database and taking concrete steps towards gender daily and in the Government Gender Bulletin, which is mainstreaming. funded by the United Nations Development Fund for In the field of women and leadership, we have Women. striven to nominate women for, and place them in, Suriname is implementing a programme on the leadership positions in all sectors — of course, not decentralization and strengthening of local government without some obstacles. In the previous five years we in cooperation with the Inter-American Development have nominated for the first time women for the Bank. We can assure the Assembly that the process of positions of Speaker of Parliament, Minister of Justice gender mainstreaming will continue with the and Police, Judge and Attorney-General, while the decentralization of gender training to local districts, number of women in Parliament has increased. through public education, radio programmes in local In the field of health, the Government of languages, television programmes and empowerment Suriname has mandated a non-governmental projects for grass-roots women and men. This organization to explicitly deal with the promotion and empowerment programme is based on the sustainable implementation of the sexual and reproductive health livelihood approach of the United Nations and rights of women. Development Programme. In this respect the Government furthermore acknowledges the important In the area of poverty eradication, various role of the private sector and of non-governmental community development projects were carried out with organizations as partners in gender mainstreaming. assistance from major donors, such as the European Union, the Netherlands, the Inter-American In our efforts to achieve gender equality, my Development Bank and various United Nations Government holds the view that it is essential for men agencies, of which women and children are and women to become equal partners in the process of beneficiaries. sustainable development, gender mainstreaming and securing peace. Gender mainstreaming should not be a The Canada-Caribbean Gender Equity Fund and process only within the public sector, but also at the ECLAC also assisted us in the implementation of the level of the funding agencies and financial institutions, Beijing Platform for Action. With their support, gender which can play a critical role in supporting mainstreaming within the public sector was started and Governments in their efforts to integrate gender has already yielded results. Due to this awareness, the concerns into policy identification, implementation, Convention of Belém do Pará, on the elimination of monitoring and evaluation. violence against women, is only one step away from being ratified by our National Assembly, and the first In closing, my Government reaffirms its report on the implementation of the Convention on the commitment to the further implementation of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Beijing Platform for Action and is pleased to be part of Women has been drafted. the global consensus on the future course of action for the advancement of women in the new millennium. Suriname is in the process of formulating its first National Gender Plan, to which Government The Acting President: I now give the floor to institutions and some 100 non-governmental Her Excellency Ms. Christine Bergmann, Federal organizations have contributed through participation in Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women various workshops. The methodology which has been and Youth of Germany. used was based on the questionnaire of the Division for the Advancement of Women and the indicators of 2 A/S-23/PV.4 Ms. Bergmann (Germany): First of all, I would able to take advantage of the opportunities offered to like to associate myself with the statement made by them by the age of new information and Portugal on behalf of the European Union. communication technology. The global conferences prior to Beijing had We know that women will not automatically focused on equal opportunity for women and men and profit from the information society. That is why we are actively pursued its advancement. The Fourth World collaborating with business to achieve greater equality Conference on Women, however, was able to light a of opportunity in this area. We would like to increase flame for the implementation of equal opportunity, a women’s presence on the Internet to 50 per cent over flame which continues to burn conspicuously all the next five years and the proportion of women around the world. It is now up to us all to keep that undergoing training in information technologies and flame alight and to prevent it from dying out or from pursuing studies in the field of informatics to 40 per being extinguished on purpose. cent. This is crucial, since the achievement of equality If we want to bring about real gender equality, between women and men is an irreversible process, men need to be more involved in family tasks and in even when in some cases progress seems to take place raising children. Therefore, we have introduced a law at a snail’s pace. Women’s rights are human rights. The into the legislative procedure which makes it possible most recent achievement on this path has been the for fathers and mothers to take parental leave Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on simultaneously. During that period they are entitled to the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against part time work of up to 30 hours per week. For two out Women. Our aim must be to have that Protocol signed of these three years it is possible to obtain an income- by all countries. Germany will be embarking on the linked child-raising benefit. One year of the parental ratification process before the end of this year. leave can be taken at a later stage until the child is eight years of age and if this is mutually agreed with Our equal rights policy must continue to focus the employer.