NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 13 – As Vice President of the UN Women Executive Board, the Italian Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Maurizio Massari took the floor today, during the first regular session of 2023, announcing a further contribution to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women.
“UN Women mission and action along its triple mandate remains crucial in all regions of the world. From Afghanistan to Ukraine, from Sub-Saharan Africa to South-East Asia, fragility and insecurity have increased and exposed too many women and girls to unacceptable violence, discrimination, lack of access to political, social and economic rights and opportunities, services and protection. These are unacceptable practices which all Governments must actively work to end, not to promote or condone”.
Massari encouraged the Executive Director of the organizations, Sima Bahous, and the Management to further reflect on how UN Women can improve impact and programme-delivery on the ground and, in this regard, he welcomed any highlight from her on next steps or promising plans for this year. He also welcomed improved partnerships, both within the UN System and also with the International Financial Institutions. In this regard, Massari recalled Italy’s partnership with UN Women as implementing actor of selected programs in Africa in the context of the “Team Europe Approach”.
Last year Italy had increased by 20% its core contribution to UN Women. The Ambassador announced that for this beginning of the year Italy has already decided to provide an additional financial contribution of 2.4 million euro to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women – administered by UN Women – and to allocate additional resources to ongoing projects in Africa and the Middle East: “This support – he said – will be additional to existing programming and to this year’s core contribution to come, confirming our increased trend in quality funding and our concrete and full commitment for women and girls”. (@OnuItalia)
