Statement by H.E. Ambassador KIM Sook
Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea
Second Regular Session of 2011
Executive Board of UN Women

5 December 2011
New York

Madam President,

Let me express my sincere appreciation for your leadership in steering this Board at a critical period of 
UN Women. My appreciation also goes to Ms. Michelle Bachelet, Under-Secretary-General and Executive 
Director of UN Women for her committed efforts to make the first year of this young agency successful.

Madam President,

The establishment of UN Women this year was a landmark, showing the determined will of the international 
community to gender equality and the empowerment of women. .

Regrettably, however, the lives of girls and women in the poorest parts of the world still remain miserable. 
The neglect of women in development processes is one of the most serious hindrances in achieving 
development goals, including MDGs. Against this back drop, we are glad that special emphasis was 
given to the importance of gender at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held in Busan, 
Republic of Korea last week.

The Busan Partnership, adopted at the Forum, stressed the critical importance of gender equality and the 
empowerment of women in development agenda.

On behalf of the Korean Government, I would like to thank Ms. Michelle Bachelet, for chairing the Special 
Session on Gender at the HLF-4 in Busan. We support her view, expressed at the Special Session. 
As she said, we need to move from mainstreaming gender perspective as a cross-cutting theme to 
prioritizing women’s empowerment and gender equality. UN Women should continue to play a leading 
role in prioritizing gender issue in the aid effectiveness agenda.

Gender perspective is important not only in making development effective but also in making it sustainable. 
It is encouraging that UN Women is actively engaging in the preparation process of Rio+20. UN Women’s 
valuable contribution will bring about increased synergy effect in the process.

Madam President,

One year on after the formal launch of UN Women, we are identifying many achievements of the new 
organization, as well as numerous challenges ahead.

We welcome again The Strategic Plan introduced in June this year. It clearly shows the priority and 
frameworks to meet the needs and challenges ahead in achieving gender equality and empowerment 
of women.

The Institutional Budget for the 2012 to 2013, which this board is going to deliberate and approve in this 
session, is another important building block for UN Women in executing its critical mandate. We appreciate 
all the thoughts and ideas put together in making the first institutional budget efficient, transparent and 
orientated at maximizing impacts on the ground.

However, there is plenty of room for further improvement on what we have already achieved.  UN Women 
should continue to be focused on the impacts on the ground in every stage of its operation. In this juncture, 
we support the plan to strengthen existing national offices and establishing new ones. However the 
decision on how much and where must be based on the needs on the ground. Member states, the Board 
Members in particular, should be duly informed and consulted in the whole process. 

Second, continued attention needs to be given to the enhancement of efficiency and effectiveness both in 
its management and in its delivery in the field. There is still a great potential for UN Women to improve its 
efficiency in such areas as financial management and internal governance structures. We hope that 
UN Women, under its organizational efficiency initiative, envisaged in the document UNW/2011/11 on 
institutional budget, examines all aspects of its business processes thoroughly.

Third, UN Women must continue its efforts to strengthen transparency and accountability in its management 
and utilization of resources We would like to encourage UN Women to be a model case of UN entity on 
transparency and accountability.

Madam President,

Women and girls are the hardest affected by the current global economic stagnation. In this context, it is 
very opportune that we have established a composite entity of the UN for gender equality and empowerment 
of women this year. At the same time, however, the global economic downturn makes the resource 
mobilization of the agency more difficult. Much more attention and efforts should be given to acquiring 
resources, which is critical to make the young institution successful.

Madam President,

In closing, I am sure this session of the Executive Board Meeting will be another productive and successful 
one under your leadership, and let me reaffirm my government’s commitment to the international efforts for 
gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Thank you.