CRI听力:President Xi Stresses Gender Equality at UN Meeting

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Since then, the declaration that arose from that conference has been a guideline to push for gender equality throughout the world. With that in mind and in conjunction with the UN Summit on Sustainable Development, China and UN Women have jointly held the "Global Leaders' Meeting on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment: A Commitment to Action" in New York.

As the co-host of the high-level meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the importance of gender equality.

"The pursuit of gender equality is a great cause. A review of history shows that without women's liberation and progress, the liberation and progress of mankind would not be attainable. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, it is of great significance for us to convene this Global Leaders' Meeting to reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and women's development and make plans for a better future."

Some 80 heads of states and governments are gathered for the event at the UN headquarters, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon. According to UN Women, it is the first time that commitments to women and girls have been made at this level at the United Nations.

Katherine Hunt is a participant at the UN meeting. She points out that there have been many improvements since the Beijing summit in 1995; however, the problem lies in the gap between progress and setbacks.

"We still have many major gaps in women and girls access to sexual reproductive health. We still see gaps in education for girls and continuing education for women. We see gaps in equal pay for women and also un-paid care work for women. Those are just a few of the gaps that we really need to see narrowed and we are thrilled that sustainable development goals cover a great deal of that so now we're hoping that this event is going to provide the commitments to help address these gaps."

To raise awareness and narrow down these gaps in the development process, Chinese President Xi Jinping calls for the international community to work on the following four areas.

"First, we should strive for women's development in tandem with social and economic progress. Second, we should protect women's rights and interests. Third, we should make efforts to build harmonious and inclusive societies. We must eradicate all forms of violence against women, including domestic violence. Forth, we should foster a global environment favorable for women's development."

UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon co-hosted the event with Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the meeting, Ban Ki-moon calls for the world to continue work on improving gender equality through policy making, financing and monitoring mechanisms.

"I see three areas where you can help transform our societies. First, create and energetically implement coherent gender equality policies. Second, provide significant financing for gender equality. And third, monitor progress so that all governments will hold themselves and each other accountable."

To support women's development worldwide, China will donate 10 million US dollars to UN Women. In the coming five years, China will also help other developing countries build 100 "health projects for women and children," send teams of medical experts to provide services and implement 100 "happy campus projects" to finance the schooling of poor girls and raise girls' school enrolment rate. It will also host 30,000 women from developing countries for training programs in China and provide 100,000 skills training opportunities in local communities of other developing countries.

For CRI, I'm He Fei in New York.