NATO Deputy Secretary General advocates for gender equality and women’s leadership
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In a NATO-led online conference on Gender equality and leadership: are today’s leaders leading enough? on 18 March 2021, NATO’s Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană called for more women in leadership positions, including at NATO.
The event followed the United Nations 2021 ‘Women in Leadership: achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world’ theme for International Women’s Day. It brought together civilian and military national experts, think tanks, NGOs and academia. Ambassador Baiba Braze, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy hosted the event. Mr. David Angell, the Permanent Representative of Canada to NATO, Ms. Muriel Domenach, the Permanent Representative of France to NATO and Mr. Miguel Fernández-Palacios, the Permanent Representative of Spain to NATO participated in the panel discussion.
In the face of the ongoing health crisis, gender equality and inclusiveness become more important than ever to enhance the strength and resilience of societies. Notable progress has been made since the adoption of the United Nations’ agenda on Women, Peace and Security twenty years ago, notably in terms of policies to protect women against sexual violence or to increase awareness and training of Allied armed forces. More needs to be done, Mr. Geoană noted, to understand how different issues affect men and women differently and to include women in decision-making processes.
NATO’s agenda on Women, Peace and Security is based on the three principles of ‘Integration’, ‘Integrity’ and ‘Inclusiveness’. The first NATO policy on Women, Peace and Security was approved in 2007, last revised in 2018.