UN Secretary General HE António Guterres at his opening speech to the Commission
on the Status of Women (CSW) in 2024 made quite serious number of valuable comments.
Though difficult to choose, I will quote here the ones I liked most:
First one is “I am with you. I am a proud feminist. You have my full support.” 2024 is
not the first year he had said this. But it is a very empowering and good to hear sentence.
Secondly, “I will be frank. Our world is a bit lost. People are more connected, yet societies are becoming more fragmented. Big challenges are growing outward – climate change, insecurity, conflict.” I completely agree to these sentences. But I am not sure if the solution is global or a short menu. I fear that we need work for a global solution, yet the countries may need to look for their own solutions and we learn from each other as there may not be one global solution.
Thirdly, he said “Yet more than ever, multilateralism – international problem solving – is under fire” again another sentence to which I completely agree.
Fourthly, “When women are at the table, the chance of sustainable peace increases. When women have equal opportunities in the labour force, economies can unlock trillions, as it was forecasted recently. When gender is at the heart of humanitarian assistance, vital assistance goes farther and has greater impact for everyone – men, women, girls and boys. Parity is about our very effectiveness in securing peace, advancing human rights, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.” Very correct and valuable sentences or a great outlook.
“Put simply, when we exclude women, everyone pays the price. When we include women, the whole world wins.”
Still, he said “Around the world, there is a pushback on women’s rights. That pushback is deep, pervasive and relentless. We witness increased violence against women, especially human rights defenders and women running for political office. We see online harassment and abuse of women who speak out. In some countries, homicide rates are going down – but murders of women are going up. “
Lastly, my pick among what he had said was “We have a fight on our hands. And it is a fight we must win – together.”
I am a strong believer that the fight must be for the right decision. If we give the impression that you will leave this chair and we shall put a woman to sit there, the fight is unavoidable. Increase the number of chairs is perhaps a solution! For the right decision we need to have right people around the table. Also, right decision only occurs when we are inclusive and when people around the table can freely discuss and propose different ideas at the table.
Another, groundbreaking point from the Secretary General this year was Ms Triggs story from a cartoon, where a group of people sitting around a conference table. This story I have lived myself during my career while I was serving on various boards. Board memberships I have compiled in my carrier add up to be 130 years by now. I guess it is ok to have such memories.
I short I am glad I have participated in CSW this year and I applaud HE for his speech.
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Another development to be proud of was the W20 presence and W20 Brazil organized events in CSW 68 and their overall successful grab of the gender issues. All the contributions at the organized events were great. I wish to congratulate the whole W20 Brazilian Presidency 2024, Ana Fonte – Chair of the Brazilian Delegation, Adriana Carvalho – Head of the Brazilian Delegation, Janaina Gama – Co-head of the Brazilian Delegation and all the W20 delegates and colleagues from all the G20 countries.
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Still another issue is, I was quite proud of was Kagider’s presence at CSW. As a founder in 2002, 2009-2011 board member and 2011-2015 President of the Board and now an honorary council member, I am very proud of the fact that Kagider’s attendance to CSW has now reached 12 years, as an ECOSOC registered member. Every year Kagider makes a presentation of the selected project they have developed during the year at UN CSW. I see that it has not been too many years (!) since when I had to convince my board to make a permanent decision to attend CSW meetings, even though we had not much money in our budget at that time. I said we must be able to start this. And the next year we did. Since last 12 years, Kagider was very successful in selecting and conducting new projects and congratulate Kagider for this sustainable corporate stance. Both sustainability and corporate identity are great values to leave behind for all of us. I must repeat that I am very proud to be able to see these. KAGİDER has become an entity that can successfully develop projects year after year that could create value for women either in labour force or in business as a business owner. The list of subjects taken to UN CSW were as follows, from my memory. We may complete the list further if my memory had failed me
somewhere.
2012 Equal opportunity model -FEM- developed together with World Bank for women in
employment.
2013 Digital trainings provided in several provinces to young women in cooperation with
Vodafone.
2014 Equality at work, gender equality at the workplace together with Intel and the Ministry
of Women and Family of Turkiye.
2015 The women entrepreneur of the year award that has been organized together with
Garanti BBVA, Kagider and the Economist, Turkiye.
2016 The women cooperatives and education to individual women and women cooperatives
in Soma together with Vodafone for the widows of the mine that had collapsed/
2017 Women Leaders of Tomorrow training and network in cooperation with Sanofi.
2018 Together with Danone, the breast-feeding rooms established at the cooperate
headquarters and other corporate sites.
2019 Women suppliers in textiles with Boyner group.
2021 Network of women exporters in cooperation with UPS.
2022 Gender responsive public procurement with the women ministry and world trade
organization
2023 Women in trade together with Garanti BBVA
2024 Digital sales training provided to retail manufacturers and cooperatives in the
earthquake struck regions in 2023 together with HepsiBurada, the digital market place
whose shares are traded in Nasdaq.
It is a lot of energy. I am very proud of the effort behind this list. Thank you!
Another special thank you note from me goes to H.E.Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş – Minister of
Family and Social, Services of the Republic of Türkiye; Ms.Sarah Hendriks – Director of
Programme, Policy & Intergovernmental Division, UN Women; Elvira Marasco – Senior
Gender Equality Advisor, Founder of the Italian Delegation Women20 W20/G20 Co-Founder
President AW20, Country Chair W20 Italy, HepsiBurada top management, Esra Bezircioğlu
– President, Şila Gök – Vice President and Yeşim Seviğ Secretary General, KAGIDER for
their contributions, and all the Kagider board members.
