 Good morning everybody. Let me begin our proceedings today by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and we pay our respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal people past and present. My name is Fiona Jenkins and on behalf of both the ANU Gender Institute and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade I'd like to welcome you all to this morning's discussion and a special welcome to our very distinguished guests including those who are here from the diplomatic community of Canberra to friends and colleagues in the ANU Gender Institute and to all of you who've come from government departments, NGOs and a wide range of organizations across Canberra as well as further afield. I know we have people who've come from right across Australia to be here today and as you know we've had to actually change the venue to accommodate the huge interest in this event so it's very exciting that you're all here. It's an incredible privilege for us to be here today hosting the executive director of UN Women, Pumzili Mlambo Nuka. In conversation with our highly respected journalist Virginia Hasega. We're filming and recording the event today for broadcast. It will appear hopefully as a big idea is broadcast on ABC. This in fact is the only opportunity for members of the public to hear Mrs. Mlambo Nuka speak while she's visiting our country and two years ago we were similarly honored when Michelle Bachelet who was then the UN Women's Executive Director joined us here at the ANU Gender Institute and again that was a very welcome collaboration we had with DFAT. On that occasion Ms. Bachelet gives very powerful insight into the complex issues that UN women were engaging as well as a glimpse of her own extraordinary story as a leader and a fighter for gender equality. Ms. Pumzili Mlambo Nuka joins us today at a very critical juncture in the lead up to the 20th anniversary of the Beijing platform for action the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing gender equality in the world. As a defining framework for change the Beijing platform made comprehensive commitments under 12 critical areas of concern for women and girls yet ensuring that the world upholds these commitments and continues to progress gender equality remains a pressing task today and one that we look to UN leadership to advance and the Gender Institute is a really staunch supporter of all that you do there. So we're delighted and honored that you join us today to speak about your work and I'd now like to invite our Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Jenny Corbett to step forward to further welcome you to ANU and to introduce our special guests. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, your excellencies and members of the diplomatic community, welcome to the Australian National University. We are honored to have here today so many distinguished representatives of their countries from the embassies and high commissions of Canberra. I would particularly also like to welcome the students from Dixon College who join us. It's vitally important that younger generations understand the ongoing work needed to realize gender equality globally and we're very glad to have you here. Since the Gender Institute was established three and a half years ago it has on many occasions brought to ANU highly important public discussions of gender equality and we're very proud of that tradition. Collaboration with the Australian National Committee for UN Women has been ongoing. SO2 has worked with other NGOs and with key areas of government where progressing women's rights is a crucial agenda, including in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and in the Office for Women. To give one example, on the 23rd of September ANU will host the second annual civil dialogue on women, peace and security in collaboration with UN Women Australia, the Australian Council for International Development and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The day will track the progress of Australia's National Action Plan to realize UN Resolution 1325 by supporting the political and human rights of women and girls in conflict situations. Starting operations in January 2011 UN Women's mandate is to accelerate global promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Over many decades the United Nations has made significant progress in advancing gender equality yet gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society. Today it's my great pleasure to introduce to you the Executive Director of UN Women, Prumzile Mlambo Nuka. Prumzile Mlambo Nuka is the United Nations Undersecretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women. She was sworn into office on the 19th of August 2013 and brings a wealth of expertise to this position having devoted her career to issues of human rights, equality and social justice. Miss Mlambo Nuka has worked in government and civil society and with the private sector and was actively involved in the struggle to end apartheid in her home country of South Africa. From 2005 to 2008 she served as Deputy President of South Africa overseeing programs to combat poverty and bring the advantages of a growing economy to the poor with a particular focus on women. Miss Mlambo Nuka began her career as a teacher and gained international experience as a coordinator of the world YWCA in Geneva where she established a global program for young women. Miss Mlambo Nuka will today be in conversation with ABC journalist Virginia Housega who was made a member of the Order of Australia in the General Division, AM, in this year's Queen's Birthday Honours List. A board member of the Australian National Committee for UN Women, she was honoured for her significant service to the community, particularly as an advocate for women's rights and gender equity and for her service to the media. And for those of you who are not from Canberra, we all know Virginia is the face of the ABC in Canberra. There will be an opportunity for questions following the discussion. Please welcome our distinguished guests. Professor Corbe, thank you very much indeed. And what a delight it is to be here with you today, Pumsela. It's a great honour for me, for my fellow board members, from the National Committee and for all of us here at the ANU, the Gender Institute and members of DFAT and the public. So thank you so much for joining us. As Professor Corbe has pointed out, you took up this role a year ago, almost to this week. Now I must say, when I saw you do that, it was a time when I thought, this is a really tough gig. Resources are stretched. Funding for UN Women, the agency globally is not quite what we'd hoped. It's a tough role. Why did you take it up? Well, change requires us to come up to the fore and make it happen. If you and me don't step up, you know, we're advocating I think what is the responsibility that we have as women on whom society has invested a lot of trust. And I thought it as an opportunity to lead. So I felt that in some ways, serving women is probably one of the best things that one can can ever do in this ever-going struggle for a better world. So a year into the job, I know you came into it with very clear vision as to what you wanted to do, a year into it. Have you seen much progress? Well, firstly I must say, I don't know if the vision was that clear. I was open to learning. I knew that Michelle Bachelet and the team that I found there had made a great start and that I was going to be in a way standing on their shoulders to look forward. And it's been great to have that support and that history, even though it's a short history, because as you know, you and women, it's not even five years old. We are like four years old now. So yes, I have seen progress. If I even think about where we are now since Beijing, for instance, and since you and women was born, one area that stands out for me is the increase in leadership of women in countries where you least thought you could see women ascending to leadership. It doesn't mean that when we have women ascending leadership, things change overnight because then they face challenges, but it is important to see that when women get into those leadership, they begin to make laws that work better for women. I mean, I can count countries like Afghanistan where we've collaborated with Australia. We have seen an increase in the number of women that are in parliament. We worked very hard with stakeholders locally in Pakistan to support the elections. We've worked in Mali with women there, supporting them, us not leading, but being in support and investing a significant amount of resources to push women's leadership. Also highlighting the fight on violence against women. We are not yet there in relation to winning the fight, but there is a momentum that is increasing in addition to that the mobilization of men and boys to be part of ending this fight is actually very important. And of course the work that we are doing which will move from just advocacy to also looking at normative and policy instruments at a UN level to address issues of women's economic empowerment. Again, this is an area where we've got an interesting overlap with Australia because this is also a focus area for Australia. There are a number of things there that I'd like to ask you about, but let's just go back to Beijing as you mentioned it. You've just launched the Beijing Plus 20 campaign here in Australia, which is very exciting to have you here to do that. Now Beijing Plus 20 for those who aren't familiar with it is the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Women's Conference that was held in Beijing and at that time 189 governments signed on to a declaration, the Beijing Declaration and a platform for action that we saw at the time as being one of the most progressive roadmaps for women's equality ever and it was still is, but the problem is a lot of us 20 years later are scratching our heads saying what happened? You've just named and nominated various areas of progress, but there's so much yet to do in it. Well the fact that we're sitting here today worried about child marriages is an indictment that we've made progress, but there are areas that are critical for women's empowerment and investment where we need to do more work. The fact that we sit here and we're seeing the backlash against women in areas of conflict, women are raped with impunity, we still don't have the girls in Nigeria back because they were taken to thwart their efforts in education as well as to control their reproductive rights and help selling them to men and marrying them off. All of those hotspots highlight the fact that we've taken some steps forward, but there are areas that are worrying. In addition, we are not going to celebrate the 20 years after Beijing in a manner that is befitting of what Beijing stands for because we are afraid that if we were to convene in the same manner as we convened in Beijing, sit around the table and have countries negotiate progress, we would lose what we gained in Beijing. This is how much the world has moved forward and how much there is backlash against women, so that has to be a concern for all of us. That backlash is a really tricky thing, a really tricky thing because on the one hand it speaks of progress, doesn't it? The fact that there is backlash, but as you say it makes it very difficult then to celebrate progress. I know there are some women here who were at the Beijing conference, there were 30,000 women activists came from all around the world and it was a very exciting time, but I wonder too if the ultimate declaration was perhaps too visionary. It was ahead of its time, definitely, and that is why we have to keep it as it is. We do not want to risk a forum that would reopen it because in any case what is leadership? Leadership is about having a vision, it's about looking much further than where society is and to create conditions for society to work towards attaining that vision, so yes it was ahead of its time, but it was a necessary instrument for us to show us how far the world can come and has to come in order for us to have a world that is fair for both men and women, so we have to keep Beijing as it is. One of the things that I perhaps find most disappointing is the issue of participation of women in decision making, key decision making roles and political participation. 20 years ago we were talking about significant changes, significant increases in the number of women in positions of key decision making and political power. When we look around the world now we still only have I think nine heads of state of women. 22% of women parliamentarians, for parliamentarians are women globally, so that's not good enough. And as we know there are some nations where the participation of women in parliament is less than 10%. In our own region in Pacific it's very, very low and almost negligible. Again the frustration around this makes it very hard to get feel celebratory about Beijing. Because I mean the idea is not to celebrate a handful of women who move forward, it is to create a critical mass of women at grassroots level, local government, provincial or state level and national level that participates in leadership level. But also it is about broadening the leadership of women not just in government, in private sector, in communities, in religious institutions, in cultural institutions and that is something that we still have to work very hard to attain. I mean if at the same time I think of countries in Latin America where we've seen a lot of progress in representation of women in leadership positions in government, that is something to celebrate. So we don't want to take away from the countries that are showing us the direction. Some interesting also opportunities for leadership opened up in the last 10, 20 years for women in Africa. In my own country, South Africa, the number of women in parliament has increased. We have a woman as the leader of the African Union that is something that is big for us in Africa. But also you also have countries like Afghanistan. You would not have thought that women would go past 10% and we've seen that happen. So you know there's no clear formula for this thing. But the important thing is that we must keep doing it, keep pushing. We have a situation in Australia of course where we've had a period where it looked really great. We had a female head of government, we had a female governor general, female state and territory leaders, a number of female cabinet leaders and then suddenly we blink and it's gone. That period has gone. There's always that problem. Don't despair. We're not. But two steps forward, one step back sometimes or sorry, one step forward, two steps back. Again it adds to that frustration. But having said all of this and looking at the tension of never knowing that you are on a trajectory that is irreversible, post 2015 has got to be about changes that are irreversible because it really is a luxury for the world and for all of us to keep on doing this back forward, backwards and forward movement. We need to mobilize member states, we need civil society to be as loud as they can on ensuring that we achieve an agreement that will replace the MDGs that has gender in all the aspects, in all the goals that will be adopted so that we have mainstreamed the focus of women in addition to having a goal that focuses on women which now is proposed to be goal five that will focus on the critical aspects that impact on women. The important thing about what we need to achieve in 2015 is that we must have an irreversible dispensation. For goodness sake, that has been going on for hundreds of years. The struggle for women's emancipation and gender equality. It is one of the human rights violation that is tolerated in the most amazing way. So we need to reach a point where it is not possible for leaders to stand up and call themselves leaders if they do not have a comprehensive strategic as well as a focus on addressing the issue on women because I mean I keep on saying that the fact that we're talking the way we do about women in 2014 is a spectacular failure of leadership at the top level in government, in corporations, in religious bodies because women have worked so hard. I don't think that we can ask much more from women but we have to ask much more from everybody else. From men. Absolutely, in particular. There's a lot of good men I don't want to take and some of them are in Australia. Absolutely, a lot of them are in Australia I'd like to think. But why do you think it is that there is that tolerance of inequality when we have been talking about these issues as you say for hundreds of years but particularly we've had signed up commitments for the last 20 years and yet this intolerance is just accepted? Well it's probably one of the hardest areas to work on and it also permeates all aspects of life and a lot of this also happens inside the homes. If you think for instance about violence against women 70 percent of violence against women happens inside the home of the woman where she is supposed to be protected and in many cases women tend not to want to come out and embarrass their own family. The sad thing about that is that the reporting levels is therefore not as high as it needs to be but also women are discouraged by the fact that when they do report the criminal justice system in most of our countries just does not embrace the woman. Instead sometimes women are put through such a hard time that they have to ask themselves why did I even bother to to come out. So there is a lack of a focus in the way in which we run our crystal justice system lack of making it sufficiently focused on dealing with these kinds of crimes. For that matter sometimes these crimes are seen as family tips not something that is worth of bringing into into the public. We need to strengthen the resolve of those that run criminal justice system to see these as very very serious crimes. I also think that the fact that in many of our in many of the countries we do not have enough examples of perpetrators being brought to both has made perpetrators feel that I can get away with this. I don't have to be afraid that the law will catch up with me and I'll have to pay a price. So you know it's a number of areas that we need to focus on in order to have a comprehensive strategy to push back and in many countries that is why I go back to leadership. There just isn't enough leadership that is sufficiently focused on making sure that this is an area on which as a leader I rise and fall. Let's look specifically at the Pacific and I know this is somewhere you're traveling on to after being in Australia. This is a big issue for Australia and we here do talk about the issue of violence against women in the Pacific in P&G quite a bit. The figures are horrendous the so-called family violence is horrendous and exactly as you say the perpetrators seem to get away with a lot of this because it's considered a family tip. Is it possible and I know UN women has a number of programs in the Pacific along with the Australian Government and works in partnership. Is it possible that this has become a little bit hard for the rest of the world to understand or accept because it's tucked away in the Pacific and small places? Well the colleagues were saying to me yesterday that as the UN we need to try to put the Pacific in the centre and make it more visible and I agree with that because the issues are quite challenging and sometimes we don't hear enough about the challenges that are being faced in the Pacific but having said that at the level of the UN and with UNFPA which is another agents of the UN that focuses a lot on issues of violence against women we have come to the conclusion that the Pacific is an epicentre of violence against women so our efforts have to be doubled and we need to collaborate with you we need to collaborate with civil society in the Pacific with governments there in order to address the issues it's not as visible as it needs to be I have to admit as UN women we have deployed I think quite capable colleagues to work in that area our office for instance in PNG as you know is leading in addressing the issues of violence against women our program on addressing safe cities safe markets has created a case study and best practice on how you actually almost chew the elephant one piece at a time just by addressing the issues of violence in the markets access to finance and the safety of the finances that women generate there addressing violence in the markets that the women experience getting a regulatory framework that is accepted by the police by government by by the commercial entities has meant that women are able to trade in relative safety generate income that they can keep for themselves without anyone pickpocketing them and running away with the money before they can they can have it and that has generated a very positive dynamic and that experience we are taking it beyond PNG and I'm glad to say that we're doing that with the with Australian governments and and and other governments the UK government is also a partner in this. You mentioned the MDGs just a moment ago we were speaking about the post 2015 agenda do you feel that there is a consensus from nations about what that post 15 agenda should be and how does gender come into that relatively so one thing that was good about the MDGs is that it generated a lot of data and evidence about how we make breakthroughs and take societies and communities forward and what it is that constitutes a failure and how do we arrive at a point where even some countries with very limited resources can can can actually move forward so we know a lot about how to do things about what is wrong and what is wrong and about how to find solution that has given a common platform for nations of the world because we're talking about data and evidence that everybody can look at and we can see that in many of the countries for instance where there is reproductive rights that are respected where there's access to reproductive health facilities infant mortality drops maternal health and the deaths of women giving birth is reduced so we know that there's a coloration between between the two we also know that in countries where women stay at school longer teenage pregnancy is reduced the economic empowerment of women is increased and the capacity for women to fight against poverty and the resilience is improved as well as the fight against violence so again we can see the the correlation there in the post 2015 we are using these insights and knowledge to position all of the interventions that advance equality of women much better so the goal that is proposed to be the goal that will address gender equality and women's empowerment is very much informed by evidence for instance we know that unpaid care work impacts on a large number of women all over the world and that while we know that there are many governments that will not have the cash to pay women for unpaid care work but many governments can provide infrastructure to relieve women of unpaid care work so that they can go outside the home and end an income in some cases paid care work that women do like looking after sick people can pretend into training women as trained caregivers nursing aides grassroots social workers with some expertise and an income that could change the fortunes of a lot of women in the world countries that have got social protection policies that are active and women are able to draw some resources from social protection reduce poverty of women quite quite significantly we also know that access to education for women at primary school level is important but not enough that we need to push for women and boys to go beyond primary education to secondary education because every year that we head in school changes the quality of life that these young people will lead for the rest of their lives so would you suggest then that the MDG the Millennium Development Goal on Education didn't go far enough because it was about primary school I think that we all will all agree but it maybe was realistic because the countries that were starting at such a low end they were countries that started at less than 40% and now we have got an average of about 90% of access to primary education globally that is quite something that we could regard as a big achievement of the MDGs you know it's very interesting just on education here in Australia we rank first in the world for the participation of women in education which is marvellous we have more women coming out of universities like this than we do men and yet we still struggle with women in leadership positions and political positions in in this country let me tell you there is no country that has attained gender equality in the scale of the least failed state in the most successful state Iceland ranks at the top Iceland still has gender inequality if you think central african republic is right at the bottom and Iceland is right at the top one thing that they have in common is gender inequality dear Odea the G20 the G20 summit which of course Australia is hosting very shortly you have a message for G20 leaders I believe about transformative changes in the lives of women and you want them to make that a priority absolutely how do you do that and inclusive economy the G20 has had in the last few years a challenge of rebuilding the economies that were compromised by the financial crisis this is an opportunity in the rebuilding of these economies to also look at inclusive economies at growth with development that focuses on addressing the plight of women because in any case the inequality that we still see within and between countries one thing that this inequality has in common is that women are on the wrong side of the equation so not unless in in rebuilding the economies and in addressing the issues of growth we don't just focus on GDP growth we focus on the real economy and on allocating resources in a direct manner that targets women only when we do that we will be able to see growth that is inclusive so my big message to the to the G20 is to ensure that we are targeted and that we are inclusive because the issues that they are worried about issues of the 21st century the poverty where it still exists the inequality the issues of peace and insecurity one common denominator in all of this that needs to be attended to is the plight of women so you know the answer is in our is right in front of our of our faces of course it can't happen though the improvement can't be made unless we do get men on board and it was interesting you know ahead of the G20 there was an issue here in Australia with the B20 which failed to include women in its lineup of speakers until that was pointed out and the response was oh they hadn't noticed so you know you scratch your head and think you know once again one step forward two steps or three steps or five steps back how do you think is the best way to engage men in the work that needs to be done to improve gender equality in women's empowerment we have to showcase the men who do the right thing because in case some people ever notice that they are good men so we have a campaign for instance in UN women which we call Hifushi which is project projecting and working with those men that are willing to stand up and and be counted we are asking the men to mobilize other men around programs that are targeted to address the specific challenges in their own communities and in their own countries and we are encouraging women to join hands with the men and to support and to acknowledge that now in many ways a feminist of my generation we didn't quite work with men and I will live to regret it to some extent but and so in some ways it can be even counter intuitive to do this part of that is actually speaking to ourselves about having to accept and embrace a critical role that men can do and to encourage them we also need to change the narrative as women and focus on a balanced message between the challenge that we face and the opportunities that are there and articulate what is in it for men if gender equality is achieved the emphasis that empowerment of women is empowerment of humanity is a very important message that we have to keep sending so that everybody can see that no one is being shortchanged here it is about win-win yes there is some loss of power if you think numerically if you have got to have more women in positions it means that those positions which would otherwise be occupied by men will be taken by women but the impact of that for the whole of society and for future generations is something that we've got to articulate crystal clear so that men can actually see that this is not a battle where men must win and women must lose we actually must win together it's very interesting that you point particularly to um as you say feminist of your generation when we've had a um a social media campaign the last few weeks it's been anti-feminist that's been run predominantly it would appear by young women which is quite extraordinary and disheartening for a lot of people too where do you think the problem did we do wrong well where is what is the problem or why is it do you think that some young women don't quite understand or get it in I mean I think it's likely to be also a lot of women from privileged positions that are benefiting from the struggles that you and I have fought and maybe think that because of what they can enjoy there is no need for this what they see is a an unfair targeting of men to continue I think we need to bring out the statistics that demonstrates that we have not achieved you know for all of the women of of the world what we sought to achieve the fact that even in relatively rich countries and countries that are better resourced like Australia you still have the women who are at the bottom of the pyramid that need to be supported maybe those young women might not even care about those those people that is also where our human rights culture as countries and the education thereof becomes important the institutions like these universities in their teaching need to also be supported and encouraged to make issues such as human rights quite critical in the discourse of the universities and of course the the young women's movements the youth movements become very critical is forums for for peer exchange peer pressure and for dialogues that must happen between and amongst young people I mean I feel that if you're a young person and you do not belong to any association club or organization beyond the things that you must do you actually are missing out a lot because it is in these social fora in these organizations that you actually are taken out of your comfort zone and you get amazing public education that makes you a much better adult and better person generally which is a wonderful message I'm going to take questions from the audience in a moment so if you do have a question please pop your hand up and the microphone will come your way but just before I do consider I want to come back to an issue that is quite hot in Australia at the moment we have a government talking about supplying war planes for an increased bombing campaign in Iraq which gets us thinking of course about women peace and security and the effect of of of war and conflict on women now the women peace and security agenda has been around for quite some time it's it's now gaining a good bit of traction here in Australia are you satisfied that the the 1325 resolution and the women peace and security agenda is now well understood across the world well I am very much encouraged that in every part of the world that I go of course there are countries like Colombia where the issue of women peace and security has been very visible and women with our support as well continue to play a significant role but you go to to the to the DRC you go to Southeast Asia you go to the Middle East women know a lot about the fact that the Security Council has passed resolutions that focus on on their on their role in peace and security both to protect but a significant role that women can can play in peacemaking in peace negotiations and the sustainers of peace so I'm satisfied that there has been a lot of buy-in and a lot of information in different parts of the world has permeated but the implementation has not reached the level that I would like it to reach so going forward one of the big challenges about dating 25 as a resolution that focuses on women peace and security it is about effective implementation it is about greater advocacy by civil society and greater implementation by by governments it is also about encouraging our defense services all over the world to be the advocates of women peace and security Lieutenant General Morris here in Australia is one of our shining examples of men who have come out of the comfort zone and challenged the status quo and engaged their own colleagues and peers about the importance of respecting the right of women we take his message and we are we are making it a global a global message we work with australia for instance to train troops and to prepare them for gender-sensitive peacekeeping you just do not know how important that is in a country where women are raped where it is more difficult with more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in some cases because of the number of women who are victims when we have a peacekeeping force that arrives and is gender responsive and will go out of its way to protect women that makes a big difference and we would like to see much bigger pronounced activities of that nature in all areas where countries are intervening to bring about peace in countries that are in conflict okay we will take some questions from the audience I do have a couple that have been submitted already and we're going to kick off with an audience question from one of our students from the secondary college the Dixon College Anthony Molino now Anthony I hope you've got a microphone in front of you Miss Nuka firstly I'd like to thank you for all your dedication and work you've done to making our world a better place my question for you is how do we find a balance between affirming gender equality standards and respecting existing cultural values and a balance between which gender equality the last part I didn't hear and respecting existing cultural values cultural values okay should we take a few and then I think we'll just take Anthony's first we've got a few to get through okay well you know when we think about gender equality which is a universal value and human rights universal values there we need to be brave to look at cultural practices that are harmful to women and to society as contradicting the universal human rights I don't think that in countries and communities where early marriage is seen as a norm we can actually say in the interest of respecting the cultural norms and values of those countries will turn a blind eye and will allow that to happen because that young girl and young woman who's put in that situation is having their rights violated and deserves to be supported by us so we actually have got to take the responsibility as global citizens to intervene in cultural values that are harmful to women and to women and children otherwise we risk ring fences cultural practices that are harmful and making it a no-go zone and in that way it means that even our own approach to human to human rights ceases to be universal there's rights for some people and there's different rights for other people which must accommodate even the violations of the rights that would not accept for anyone else in the world so we have to come out of the comfort zone and in some cases it means that we've got to confront people about the rights and norms in their own society but you know this is because societies are dynamic societies can change they've got to reflect about their own societies and embrace change that works out for the better and i think the the tricky thing that anthony's question goes to the core of is who decides though whose values are more important well if you are going to harm somebody and cause them to die and have them raped you know i just think that we are we all have rights to decide that it is unacceptable but ideally you need to work with the people in those communities to lead in taking a stand that denounce those and that is where investing in public education at a grassroots level supporting civil societies in those countries to provide the leadership having the humility as people who go and work in other people's community to listen to the people and the leadership of those community and supporting them to the ones that actually come out and provide leadership but i think when it is all said and done when all else fails i think we have got an obligation to intervene when people's rights are being grossly violated no matter what the situation is okay thank you for that answer we have another question here from professor hillary charlesworth so we'll just get a microphone down here and another one from de fat from rosemary cassidy on mainstream agenda professor charlesworth thanks very much i wanted to take you back to a very interesting comment you made in the opening questions which was about reopening or revisiting Beijing the Beijing platform and you said that there wasn't much point in having trying to come up with another document because of the fears that there would be a rewinding of some of the advances i was intrigued by that comment and and have heard that said and i'm wondering could you for us identify some of the factors that make it difficult to organize something like Beijing again i think at Beijing there was a sense this is a first step i think a lot of people who are Beijing might be horrified to think 20 years later we're afraid of reopening it but what in your you're in a wonderful position to identify the major factors that are causing the backlash that you've spoken of you know one of the biggest challenges centers around issues of reproductive rights and sexuality and sexual rights where we see significant pushback has been in the definition of family if you remember in Beijing we were progressive enough to accept that the family is not a traditional family of men and women we accepted single parents and women or men and we were also i mean it was not as explicit but we understood that we were not going to have a sexuality that is only a forecast on relations between men and women there was there was openness that is now a very controversial issue and for people who are giving us pushback that is what in many cases they they are afraid of we also try to emphasize the importance of a comprehensive sexual education in order to address some of both the rights and the health issues that arise out of failure of education in that in that quarter but the pushback also has been very strong because that is seen as some excuse for propaganda to encourage all kinds of sexual choices that some countries governments and societies are not comfortable with so again the tension really centers around issues of reproductive health and reproductive rights but having having said that the majority of the countries have made progress but those that have not made progress where we see backlash and a very strong fundamentalism are so strong in their push that they create enough of countries that could stifle the negotiations significantly because of the manner in which decisions are taken in the united nations if you consider a Catholic countries and if you consider the countries where there's conservative Islam and if you consider some of the countries in Africa that also have a very traditional outlook to some of the that becomes quite a warring chunk and number of countries that we have to win if we were to sit around the table and negotiate and the risk of losing is just not an option given that tension as you say and it does come back to as you've just pointed out religions is it the role of you and women to really push the boundaries here yes and we're hoping to push the boundaries in the post-2015 negotiations because there there is an opportunity and a table to sit around with the with nations and the mandate there is to try to make the world better for both men men and women so while we live Beijing as it is it does not mean that we are leaving the women's issues and not adding on some of the new challenges for instance if you think about trafficking of women when we were 20 years ago it was not a big problem and as complex as it is today we cannot in 2014 not look at new ways of addressing this issue and therefore broadening the definition of violence against women we are doing that in the 2014 which means that some of the issues that we might not have covered in a manner that requires us to cover them in 2014 without reopening Beijing and maintaining the principles as they were there we are taking these issues forward in the post-2015 negotiations and discussions okay it's fascinating we also I'll move it on we have another question from representative of DFAT Rosemary Cassidy on gender mainstreaming Rosemary if you just pop your hand up yes my question hello my question relates to UN women's role in the UN system and UN women as new organisations influence on increasing the mainstreaming of gender equality in UN organisations could you just please reflect on that UN women has played a significant role in creating a system-wide model of both encouraging UN agencies and for that matter all other institutions that don't work specifically on women but are working on development so we have created a mechanism in which in those institutions you could have a focus on women within the UN agencies almost all UN agencies now have got some focus on gender through which they look at the issues that need to be addressed under their sector if they are in education if they are in agriculture if they are in technology each one of these agencies have got to look at an agenda for women within those institutions in that way we make sure that the skills that we don't have in UN women we don't have skills to address the complex health problems that women face but WHO has got that and thankfully in an institution like WHO it is a highly engendered institution and therefore the issues of women are mainstream there if you deal with UNICEF they will focus on girl children and so on so that is how we facilitate mainstreaming but i have to say that it's not good enough what we have achieved today there's still a lot in some of the institutions even within the UN where there's room for for improvement to move beyond ticking the box and to actually fundamental bring about changes we see that in governments as well where there's been a gender mainstreaming sometimes you look and you see that the whole institution is not reinventing itself to be more gender sensitive but there's just a little corner where three people work around gender and the rest of the institution moves happily being gender insensitive and that is something that needs to change indeed indeed um luna we have a question from luna if you can just pop your hand up uh where are you this is the issue you mentioned before the elephant in the room sorry the elephant that we have to chew away at it reminds me to the elephant in the room often when we're talking about uh UN women and programs is the issue of money funding uh resources and support it's getting harder and harder and luna has a an important question about the private sector luna do you have a question i'm right here um thank you dr fulmsula for coming out here and speaking to us today um as you will be aware that the australian government has a new development policy which has a very strong focus on engaging with the private sector in your opinion what would be the most efficient and effective ways the australian government can engage with the private sector in addressing gender equality and empowerment of women in reducing poverty well uh for one day private sector in australia could give more money to the national committee of australia stay here stay here uh and to the causes of women in general because i think uh thus far it's been civil society focus on advocacy and governments focus on policy and resourcing of uh of the women's agenda and the private sector has not played a significant role it's changing but not fast enough so uh i would encourage the australian government to actually lobby and uh in some cases institutionalize and facilitate a a direction in the private sector where private sector invests in women we have the the the economic economic empowerment principles within you the you and women which sort of describes and directs a one way in which we could facilitate investment of private sector and women we talk about a private sector uh taking away the glass ceiling within the workplace that goes a long way towards a creating an environment where women can thrive in the private sector and in the economy uh the investment and and the and the trade between the companies and uh suppliers that are women owned ensuring that within each company you've got the right policy to fight sexual harassment and to make sure that there's equal pay for equal work are some of the principles that are enshrined but of course contributing to women's causes handsomely if i look at the contribution that private sector it gives to male sports and i think about what private sector contribution makes to the abuse of women and children it's chalk and cheese i love sports especially what happened in hara no offence of course what happened in the cricket fields stays there in as a south african i don't want to belabor the point but i know that these sports have thrived because of the investment that private sector has made on them and it tends to be the sports that are also male dominated we would like to broaden the investment of a private sector in the causes that are good for humanity sports is one of them but surely saving the lives of women and children is just as uh as important we also need to demonstrate to private sector what the value is of investing in in women to their own bottom line for instance a study done by ensign and yang shows that in countries where you've got gender diverse teams doing auditing there's greater client satisfaction and in many cases in those companies where there's gender diverse decision-making teams the return of benefit to the shareholder is much higher so this is an economic imperative we have to support gender inequality because it's the right thing to do it's the right thing to do but we also need to add that it is also a smart thing to do economically because there's tangible evidence that demonstrates that the the companies perform better and there's better value for them without a doubt and those business cases have been proven time and time again you mentioned the national committee of the Australian National Committee of UN women the president is sitting right here so i'll take the last question from President Danelle Wheeler thank you very much indeed thank you for Julia and thank you very much for those that call to the private sector to support us we'd be very happy with that as well i want to go back to Beijing bus 20 and i think people here would be very interested to hear what UN women is doing over the next year to celebrate and commemorate the work of those women in 1995 and i wonder if there's you could reflect also on what we could do from Australia to support you in the activities over the next year okay well as many of you may know that 2015 will be 20 years after after the declaration in Beijing was adopted so there is a cause for celebration notwithstanding that we do not want to renegotiate the declaration as was adopted in Beijing so we have got a decentralized celebration we're at a country and local level we are asking countries to host activities and events that celebrate the declaration and what was achieved and what has been achieved and we also have intergenerational dialogues and activities so that you could bring in younger people and yesterday we launched the the Australian version of that celebration of Beijing we have also asked countries to prepare national reports that review what has happened in each countries we now have about 150 countries that have submitted their reports that will enable us to write a global report informed by these reports and we will be able then to share that information with you we also have regional reports where regional economic bodies in each in each region will also produce a report which is a consolidated of the regional status and that also will inform a report that will issue in March next year which will be a report on the status of the women of the world in March during CSW we will also celebrate 20 years of Beijing in New York which is a time when we've got the largest number of women that come to the United Nations so it is opportune for us to do that but in different parts of the world we've got different celebrations in Chile for instance we'll focus on women and leadership sometime next year that will be luckily we know the president in Chile very well so that will be a collaboration between you and women and the Chilean government we will have a collaboration with the government of Korea on education we will we have had an event on human rights with the Nordic governments focusing on on on girl women and human rights we will have an event on economic empowerment in Rwanda focusing collaborating with the government there and WTO and economic agencies of of of the UN and we will also have an event on girl children with UNICEF we will have an event with ALO looking at at the economy and women at work so we are latching on and encouraging sister agencies to do celebrations that are focused on the areas of specialization and we're asking you in your big and small way to do that also in your different countries and I should add to that one of the months is focusing on women in the media and the representation of women in the media which is something that I hope everyone gets on board with too and we should make mention too that you launched yesterday the 20 for 20 campaign UN Women's National Australia Committee 20 for 20 campaign asking people to donate $20 for 20 months to really support the Beijing Plus 20 campaign. Now unfortunately ladies and gentlemen at this point I have to call an end to this fascinating discussion Prumzilla it has been absolutely a delight and wonderful to meet with you and to speak with you but I I now have to call on Kathy Klugemann the first assistant secretary of the Pacific Division from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade here in Australia to close today's event Kathy. Well thank you very much indeed Virginia and I'd like to thank Virginia and thank Miss Lambo Nuka for a fascinating and inspiring discussion here today. I think I speak for most of the all of the people in the audience when I say events like these have the power to make change in themselves the conversations that you've just been having feed into the thinking of everybody in this room and feed into the conversations that we all go and have with our partners with our families and with others. My own conversation with my own family in light of the comments that you've made about some online backlash led by young Gen Y women when it comes to my seven-year-old daughter I've made it absolutely clear to Ella that she must be a radical feminist when she grows up and if she isn't I'm not going to buy her another Barbie doll that's it. Since the last visit to Australia of the Executive Director you're predecessor the Executive Director of UN Women we have had a change of government in this place and just as we've we no longer have an Australian a female as an Australian Prime Minister we have for the first time in our history a woman is our foreign minister and I think that that's an important development for Australia and it's certainly a priority of our new foreign minister Julie Bishop to keep working hard and for Australia to retain a leadership role internationally in promoting the rights of women and I think very importantly working with organizations like UN Women working with other governments to do what we can to protect the gains made so far and to advocate against the sort of backsliding including on those central issues of women's reproductive rights so we the Australian government's commitment and interest in that is unflagging it as it is at least as strong as it has ever been so too is our partnership with UN Women in a previous job I was standing in the Cook Islands with our then Prime Minister and with your predecessor with Michelle Bachelet when Australia made an announcement which was a real head-turning announcement in the Pacific when it came to the rights of women and that was the launch of our Pacific Women shaping Pacific Development Aid Programme $320 million over 10 years it blew out of the water entirely anything that had ever been tried before the good news is we're still at the beginning of that program we're about two years into the decade and I am absolutely determined that everybody who's working on that program is determined that we will work as hard as we possibly can so that when we reach the end of the 10 years we see that we have done something transformative I'm very pleased to see with us today Jacinta the Deputy High Commissioner for Papua New Guinea the determination of the current Papua New Guinea in government to make a real difference when it comes to violence against women and rights of women is very clear and the partnership between Australia and the Papua New Guinea governments is very strong in this area but we need your help we need the help of UN Women and we are funding UN Women on the markets programs and the other things that you referred to we need the help of UN Women but we know also need the help of everybody in this room to come up with new ideas for transformative change because if we don't try new approaches I'm really afraid we will get to the end of that decade and we will not have have had the impact that we are determined to have in collaboration with the governments of Papua New Guinea with the governments of the Pacific and elsewhere finally before I close I'd like to pay tribute to UN Women there's a reason that the Australian government has been at the forefront of funding and support for UN Women and that is because we see an extraordinarily important role for your organisation and I think your organisation including in relation to to other UN organisations has been very willing and very keen to take seriously the issues in for example the Pacific. Too often with global organisations focused on development understandably you often get focus on areas where the largest number of people are suffering the deepest poverty that is absolutely understandable but that can have a side effect of marginalising or not bringing to the centre the sort of development issues really difficult development issues including really difficult women's issues that we have here amongst the scattered and small but very important populations of the Pacific so UN Women has stepped up to the plate and that's why we are such a strong partner for you and we will continue to be a strong partner for you. Before I close I'd like to because this is a vote of thanks I would like to pass on my thanks very strongly to the ANU for the partnership that that you have developed with us for today and beyond today and in particular with the ANU's gender institute I'd particularly like to thank Fiona Jenkins, Barbara Clare and Jenny Corbett from the ANU for all the work that you that you do thank you very much.