Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2015-10-07-Speech-3-693-000"
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"en.20151007.31.3-693-000"2
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"Mr President, we are here on the late shift but we are here to discuss what is still a very important issue, and I know you all agree about that.
Finally, we have got to see this discussion in the context of the wider work on the Sustainable Development Goals signed up to two weeks ago in New York. Goal 5 is about how to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, and there are nine targets. We need to translate those targets into actions here, and we need to add indicators in order to do that.
People are saying we need a data revolution and we need dis-aggregated data. If we do not count women and girls, if we do not know what is happening to them, we will not be able to change their lives.
The real test of whether our policies work will be whether women and girls in developing countries feel the change. In New York we all pledged ourselves to leaving nobody behind, and now we have got an opportunity to put that into practice. I think you have the support of this House, Commissioner, to do the right thing on the gender action plan.
We wanted this debate tonight because we want to see a real commitment from the Commission and the Member States to a step change on gender equality and women’s empowerment in development. We want to see agenda action taken seriously, not just paid lip service to by our institutions. We know we need a step change because the Commission’s own evaluation of the last programme says, and I quote, ‘the results were very patchy and poorly documented’, and ‘the results are the accomplishments of committed individuals, rather than an organisational response’.
So we do need to see change, but I am afraid I have got to start tonight’s comments on a negative note. Our draft resolution called on the Commission to produce a new gender action plan (GAP) as a communication to give a strong political signal about that need for that step change; a message that gender matters and women’s empowerment should be higher on the agenda of development policy.
We also made that call about the need for communication because we heard rumours, which unfortunately turned out to be true, that the Commission wanted to publish the new GAP as a staff working document, not as a communication, as had previously been intended. Indeed, the day after our committee vote the Commission published a staff working document on gender.
Now I have spoken to people in the Commission and I have heard their arguments. They do not want to be seen to be churning out communications one after another, and some think that talking about the status of the document amount to quibbling. But when you turn to the evaluation of the last programme, I think you will see why we need to make sure the document is taken seriously: the evaluation says that incentives to motivate staff in the Commission and the External Action Service, both in Brussels and in the delegations, and to take gender and women’s empowerment seriously, were missing. There was a failure to do that.
If we had had a communication, it would have been adopted by the entire College of Commissioners: it would have sent a strong message to ambassadors in our delegations that this is a policy of the European Commission, not a staff working document. So downgrading the gender action plan, Commissioner, was not the wisest way in which to start a discussion within the Commission on streamlining your work.
I suppose we are where we are tonight – and Commissioner Timmermans has assured us that he is a feminist and is fully committed to the new framework. I know that Commissioner Mimica, Commissioner Stylianides and the Presidency of the Council, indeed the Council as a whole, are very committed on this.
So on the details of our resolution, what we want now are concrete policies, coupled with financial resources. We want gender equality to be a core business of the delegations, with more emphasis on reporting, monitoring and evaluation. We want it to be part of the human rights dialogue with third countries and we want action on programing on education, on violence against women and girls, on ending discriminatory practices, on equal pay and decent work. We want action on maternal health, access to health care and – I would personally add – a clear affirmation of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
So Commissioner, what I want to hear from you is about how the plans for funding are going to be put in place and how we are going to do the concrete follow-up on this action plan, or framework as you are now calling it."@en1
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