Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Dr. Geeta Gupta's Remarks at the Fifth Annual Capital Level Meeting of the Women, Peace and Security Focal Points Network Ministerial Lunch

Ministers, Ambassadors, distinguished guests, thank you so much for joining us today, and throughout this week, in this capital meeting as part of our co-chairship of the Women, Peace and Security Focal Points Network with Romania.

We are grateful for your partnership as we continue our work on our co-chair theme, “Advancing the adaptability and evolution of WPS as a framework for implementing policy change.”

This meeting marks the half-way point of our co-chairship, and we recognize the Network has already engaged several times through the co-chair meeting in March, a survey discussing priorities and WPS efforts, and a series of virtual regional consultations on the co-chair priorities. We thank you for your and your teams’ participation in these.

We look forward to another two in-person gatherings later this year, at the UN General Assembly High-Level Week ministerial-level side event in New York City in September, and a Focal Points Meeting in Bucharest, Romania in November. We will share more details on both events at a later date.

We have three priorities for our term as Co-Chair:

• Advancing the shared solidarity and expectations of the national Focal Points by clearly defining the role;
• Adjusting WPS efforts and actions to meet global requirements through a national focus on WPS and continued support for WPS National Action Plan (NAP) implementation including resourcing and training; and
• Increasing and improving the adaptability of WPS as a framework for designing and implementing policy change, and the evolution of WPS to advance an inclusive approach and address intersectional power dynamics through the engaging with the expertise within the Network on developing a standardized understanding of regional WPS Centers of Excellence.

Since the beginning of the year we have held 5 virtual regional workshops on these priorities, conducted one survey with nearly ¾ responses, and held a virtual opening meeting. We look forward to continuing to work on these priorities in multiple different ways the rest of the year.

I would like to close by thanking our amazing partners, co-chair Romania and UN Women for all their efforts to allow us to gather in-person this week. We look forward to our continued partnership throughout the rest of our co-chairship, and beyond.

I look forward to hearing from you all today on your priorities around the WPS agenda and we are so grateful to have you join us.