Esteemed panellists,
Koh Miyaoi and the RBAP Gender Team – Josphine Candiru and Tshering Choden,

Esteemed partners connected from various countries in the Pacific,

Colleagues, 

Greetings from Fiji. I am pleased to be here this morning and welcome you all to the first day of our Gender Mainstreaming training organized by UNDP Pacific and conducted by RBAP Gender Team. The training, which will last three days from today until Wednesday 2^nd March, is part of the recently approved Gender Capacity Development Plan for UNDP Pacific Office.

The Gender Capacity Development Plan has been prepared to guide capacity enhancement of UNDP staff and partners on gender mainstreaming in all programs in order to achieve better gender equality results, and it responds to identified needs for capacity building and knowledge sharing raised during the gender capacity assessment conducted between September and October 2021. Specifically, the action-oriented plan aims at addressing the capacity challenges and gaps delineated by the assessment process, and to support staff capacity development needs. The capacity development plan covers the year of 2022 in alignment with the UNDP Pacific Office Gender Seal Action Plan.

The UNDP Pacific Office is committed to promote Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and is prioritizing capacity development with the aim of enhancing capacity and skills of all MCO’s colleagues on gender equality. The commonly recognized strategy for achieving this, both in UN and more broadly, is gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming in training and capacity building initiatives, if implemented systematically, facilitates more efficient and inclusive actions, as well as a positive change in our attitudes. The training organized for the following three days is the first of a series of capacity building moments that aim to strengthen gender capacity across all UNDP Pacific Office staff and partners.

Through this training, we want to change attitudes towards gender equality and understand how integrating gender equality increases effectiveness of our actions. Concrete methods to mainstream gender equality will be presented and shared. At the end of the training, we will be able to know how and when to use gender mainstreaming tools, taking account of individual circumstances and areas of responsibility.

We are grateful to the RBAP Gender Team and their technical guidance in developing this and the upcoming trainings. Let me also acknowledge some of our implementing partners attending the training today, a sign of how gender equality and women’s empowerment are crucial in our partnerships and interventions across the Pacific region.

Training helps us to build gender competence and acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for advancing gender equality in our daily lives and work. Let us all actively participate in the next three days to build solid foundations around gender equality concepts and deliver our commitments to equal human rights for all.

I thank you all for your participation and all the best in this training.