Mr. President,

I am pleased to represent the United Arab Emirates today in the annual event for announcing the pledges of member states to finance and support UN-Women.

At the outset, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the UN Women for its achievements and its continued progress in the areas of implementing its mandate and strategic plan, which raised the partners’ confidence in its capacity and efficiency in impacting and delivering results.  The progress achieved by the UN Women also led to expanding its partners and boosting its core and non-core resources to their highest levels in 2014, fulfilling for the first time the budget’s targets of the UN Women since its inception.

The UN Women has made significant progress in the area of economic empowerment and political participation of women, and integration of women in peace and security efforts, humanitarian activities and in the fight against all forms of violence against women. We are proud of this progress, which encourages us to continue our moral and financial support to the UN Women in order to enable it to achieve its mission. However, gender equality has not been achieved yet in any country in the world according to the Executive Director's report. Therefore, a lot needs to be done to realize our vision for gender equality in all fields and countries. We must also ensure the resources necessary for achieving the desired global goals and results.

Mr. President,

The United Arab Emirates believes in the important and leading role of the UN Women in achieving gender equality and women empowerment worldwide, and it is committed to continuing and strengthening its partnership with the UN Women in implementing its strategies and objectives. Therefore and as a contribution to achieving the UN Women’s objectives, we raised our contribution to its core budget for the years 2014-2015 to more than 7 million dollars, and we look forward to further our cooperation and partnership through the liaison center to be opened in Abu Dhabi, and also through our future contributions in the coming years.

Lastly, I would like to reiterate the UAE’s commitment to strengthening the UN Women’s efforts and to work with it in implementing its mandate in the areas of gender equality and women's empowerment at national, regional and global levels and in all fields.

Thank you,