1 November 2015, Geneva, Switzerland - Following the launch and success of UNITAR’s new Women’s Leadership Programme, UNITAR and the UN Women Training Center committed to strengthening their cooperation in the field of capacity building and women’s empowerment.

At the occasion of UNITAR’s forth Women’s Leadership workshop, for delegates to the ITU’s WRC-15 conference, UNITAR’s Executive Director and UN Assistant Secretary General, Mr. Nikhil Seth, and the Director of the UN Women Training Center, Ms. Clemencia Muñoz-Tamayo, signed a joint Memorandum of Understanding, manifesting the collaboration between the two United Nations agencies.

Women’s participation in leadership roles remains a high priority as we celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.  The UN is also readying itself to support Member States in their implementation of the recently adopted the Global Agenda 2030 with its Sustainable Development Goals, calling for the mainstreaming of gender equality across all goals.  

The Women’s Leadership Programme is a joint initiative launched by UNITAR’s Multilateral Diplomacy Programme and UN Women in May 2015, and has since delivered events in Geneva and New York, reaching over 250 participants. The Programme seeks to promote gender equality and leadership opportunities for women in multilateral decision making fora.  Mr. Seth stated in his opening speech on Sunday 1 November that “The Women’s Leadership Programme is driven by the fact that women’s equality and empowerment is good politics, good economics, good for social inclusion and an important way of insuring peaceful and just societies”. 

For more information, to get involved or to support the work of the Women’s Leadership Programme, please contact Emily Fraser, Specialist MDP UNITAR, emily.fraser@unitar.org (+41 (0)22 917 8526).