VP Issues Update

Kia ora koutou, warm greetings from North America,

I am presently enroute to St Kitts for the BPW International Congress in a month. This is a timely reminder of our international links and the situation for women globally.

UN Women has released a report "Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2024" which finds that globally, we are falling short on commitments to women and girls.

It comments on the economic cost of gender inequality, that the the world is missing out on $10 trillion every year by not investing in women’s rights.

At present, progress is too slow to achieve SDG 5 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

However, the report offers hope, that with the right policies and investments, achieving equality is within reach. They recommend six investment priorities to turn the tide:

• Ensuring women farmers have access to land and resources, climate-resilient agroecology for sustainable food systems and food security for all.

• Clean energy transition that includes gender-responsive financing and puts women in leadership.

• Closing the digital gender divide, addressing digital violence, and increasing women’s and girls’ leadership in science, technology and innovation.

• Making sure girls go to and stay in school to close the gender gaps in education and opportunities.

• Investing in social protection systems and the care economy to reduce poverty and create green jobs.

• Climate policymaking led by women, redistributing resources to build their resilience to climate change and loss of biodiversity, and providing reparations for harms caused by carbon emissions.

These items are strongly relevant to New Zealand women and threaded throughout our policy and advocacy work.

Over the past month we did written and oral submissions on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2) (submission link here) and the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill (link here). We engage with Ministers on women's health and our Past President Carolyn Savage represented BPW New Zealand in Geneva with our ally NGO's in front of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

We will continue to strive to influence decision-making for a better world for all women and girls. Thank you to our members who support this mahi.

Ngā mihi nui,

Siobhan Dilly

VP Issues

BPWNZ