Drafted by: M. Jitsukawa
Concurred by: Ms T. Kay
Approved by Ms K. Hokkaido

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

ESCAP/OSAGI Asia-Pacific Regional Symposium on Gender Mainstreaming
10-13 December 2001
Bangkok

CLOSING ADDRESS BY MS KEIKO OKAIDO
DEPUTY EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Madame Chairperson,
Ms Carolyn Hannan,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

As the Asia-Pacific Regional Symposium on Gender Mainstreaming comes to its conclusion, I would like to express my appreciation of your hard work and congratulate all of you on the communiqué which you have just unanimously adopted.

I note with appreciation that the communiqué is a crystallization of your intensive and interactive deliberations during this symposium. It reaffirms the importance of the gender mainstreaming strategy to promote gender equality and covers new thinking on the effective implementation of the strategy. In your deliberations on alleviating poverty in a globalization world, you have drawn attention to the inadequacy of focusing only on income poverty and have called for a human poverty perspective which recognizes the multiple deprivation and the violation of the rights and entitlements of women. Your have also pointed out the need to bridge the gap between macro-economic policies and social policies which seek to achieve the goals of social justice and gender equality.

I also note that your have made value-added contributions to the important subject of gender budgeting as a means to link policy commitment to resource allocations. The interconnection which you have pointed out of the development of technical capacity for gender budgeting and the need to support this process politically especially through civil society advocacy is also very enlightening.

The institutionalization of gender mainstreaming approaches is another key area which you have addressed. Many important issues have also been raised in ensuring accountability and responsibility for gender mainstreaming. I thank those who have shared with the symposium good practices and lessons learned from your own experiences of developing and operating various innovative approaches.

The sharing of gender mainstreaming practices in various sectors has proved to be an exercise helpful for us to reflect upon the gaps between theory and practice. Innovative concepts can be considered useful, feasible, sustainable, and effective only when they prove their worth in the field. Such information would be available only from those of you who have taken the initiative to explore the potential of different approaches in reality and frequently in uncharted territory. In your working groups, I understand that you had the opportunity to look at gender mainstreaming in sectors outside the governmental arena , and also in emerging issues , including in post-conflict nation building. This has been an invaluable forum to learn from one another and to strategize on improved approaches.

In our rapidly globalizing and interconnected world, subregional and regional bodies are becoming increasingly important in shaping policy directions, and your deliberations has shed light on the various measures which intergovernmental bodies have taken to address gender mainstreaming and the useful role which these entities can play in promoting common standards and norms, and in intercountry cooperation.

As the only intergovernmental body in this region, ESCAP for its part stands ready to move forward with you in promoting gender mainstreaming as a key instrument for gender equality.

I wish to convey our most grateful thanks to the Government of Japan for its financial support, and governments and agencies that have sponsored resource persons' presentations, and all other donors and supporters that have contributed to the success of this symposium .

I would also like to thank Ms Angela King, Ms Carolyn Hanna, the staff of the Office of Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women and the Division for Advancement of Women for their collaboration with ESCAP. I wish you all the best for the upcoming four symposia that you will be jointly organizing with other regional commissions. It is our sincere hope that this Asia-Pacific Regional Symposium has been a successful first step in this global endeavour.

Madame Chairperson,
Distinguished participants,

I hope you have found this symposium useful in providing you with new ideas, knowledge and information. I wish you every success in pursuit of the goals and strategies developed in this symposium to mainstream gender in all sphere of your work

Thank you very much once again for your very valuable contributions. I wish you safe journey as you return home and look forward to continuing collaboration with you for the goal of gender equality, development and peace.