Mr. President,

 On behalf of the G77 and China, South Africa has the honour to deliver this statement under agenda item 7 (e) on "mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system.

Mr. President,

Gender Mainstreaming is a major global strategy for the United Nations system in the promotion of gender equality. This strategy has been endorsed in the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and later in the ECOSOC's Agreed Conclusions 1997/2 on "Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system." The importance of translating gender mainstreaming into a practical reality, received strong political commitment at the highest level during the 23rd Special Session of the General Assembly, the 2000 Millennium Summit, as well as the 2005 World Summit.

The Group of 77 and China therefore, supports gender mainstreaming as "the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in any area and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and social spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality."

Furthermore, the G77 and China believes that gender mainstreaming should situate gender equality issues at the centre of all analysis, policy decisions, plans, programmes, monitoring, budgetary subvention and institutional structures and processes. It is indeed important that all the various components of gender mainstreaming are taken into account within the United Nations system. This includes the principle of 50/50 gender balance with full respect for the principle of equitable geographic distribution of women.

Mr. President,

The Group notes in the Report of the Secretary-General, that enhancing system-wide gender sensitivity and gender expertise would require that all the entities of the United Nations system integrate a gender perspective into their training programmes for all staff, including those at the highest levels.  System-wide monitoring and evaluation of the impact of such training were further recommended.

In this regard, the Group 77 and China acknowledges the efforts made by the entities of the United Nations system to increase awareness, knowledge, commitment and capacity of staff to integrate a gender perspective in their respective fields, including through the development of training. However, a large gap still remains between policy and practice with the result that a gender perspective is not yet fully integrated into the work of the United Nations. The Group attaches importance to gender training of staff at all levels in the United Nations system and supports the call for specific commitment to be made to gender training. Therefore, adequate human and financial resources for such training should be provided within the United Nations’ training budgets. However, the Group is of the view that resources for gender training should not be at the expense of other training priorities within in the United Nations system.

In conclusion Mr. President, the Group supports the continued efforts of all relevant United Nations entities, as well as the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality in incorporating a gender perspective within the United Nations system by means of  awareness-raising and gender training and looks forward to receiving a follow-up report on this issue in 2007.

I thank you