Speech

Thank you Baiba.

I would also like to welcome the public, who is watching, the audience who is watching.  Saturday, it will be the day of the Francophonie and I'm very happy to have with me my colleagues, ambassadors from France, Canada and Spain, on this very important topic. When I hear the word leadership something activates within myself. I've been encouraging leadership all my life, and I believe that my new role at NATO is also another way to spur these kind of conversations. Let me say, before telling you what we are doing and plan to continue to be doing in NATO, let me say just say in my personal but also my official capacity, that we are here, three nations represented by the excellent ambassadors, they have here in NATO, that are true leaders and the leaders of these nations are also true leaders when it comes to the gender equality.

I remember the G7 Presidency of Canada in 2018. I remember Prime Minister Trudeau for the first time proposing gender equality as a transversal topic across everything that the G7 was tackling in the year of your presidency. And I still remember, with great, great interest and fondness, one of the conclusions of the Canadian Presidency of the G7 which is ‘make gender inequality history’.

This was followed by President Macron and France’s Presidency of the G7, in the following year 2019. I remember reading avidly the Biarritz Final communiqué. The decision of the G7 nations to contribute to an International Fund for the protection of victims of sexual violence, proposed by two Nobel Prize Peace winners. Then Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad.  I also remember the Biarritz partnership for business for inclusive growth. I also remember this effort for Africa, for women entrepreneurs in Africa, because empowering women also in regions that need stronger society, more vibrant, economic and social, and security, dimensions. We need this.

And Spain. Prime Minister Sanchez himself. Out of the six lady foreign ministers and eight lady defense ministers in NATO, Spain is providing both, foreign and defense ministers. And the gender equality in the cabinet of Spain that Prime Minister Sanchez has been pushing forward, I think consistently over many many years. And it is also not this government, I think it's a feature of Spain's politics for many years to come. So we are here with three nations that are leading by example.

And also, we are counting on you leadership also inside NATO. Now when it comes to what we do at NATO. We've come quite a long way here in the International Staff, we are here in the auditorium of the headquarters that we have in Brussels. Today 30% of our management positions in the International Staff are women. Could do better. We will do better. But that's also an indication of what we do.

When it comes to NATO policy on gender equality and gender inclusiveness, we start from three key principles. One is integration. The second one is inclusiveness. And the third one is integrity. Because if you look to gender equality from these angles, you see the NATO has a lot to contribute to and also to make sure that we bring security, not only in traditional forms, but also we invest in resilient societies. Resilience is the buzzword, especially during, and probably also after, the pandemic, resilience will be a key issue. As we embrace in NATO resilience, as we do resilience also in the NATO European Union conversation, which I strongly encourage, as we are looking into our societies, I believe that gender equality and inclusiveness, and integration, and integrity are part of our resilience, and our security in a broadest sense of the term.

Secretary General Stoltenberg in his NATO 2030 proposals, and we hope that the foreign ministers meeting next week, our leaders meeting later this year, will also give us the green light on a process of further adaptation of this Alliance. But I know that a more diverse, inclusive participation in our armed forces, in our national security establishment, here at NATO itself, in our headquarters, in our strategic commands, in the many places across the NATO enterprise. This is something that diversity brings strength, diversity, inclusiveness mean being more resilient and be more able to cope with future risks and crises because, unfortunately, the world is not going to stop from surprising us sometimes negatively with crises and potential conflicts.

The third issue that I would like to mention is the corporation with like-minded institutions. I mentioned the EU on resilience, but I do believe that NATO-EU strategic partnership is a vital community of like-minded nations. And of course, the job description of each of the two organizations might differ, but in the end, in essence, we are here to defend the same values of democracy, rule of law, and personal and individual freedoms. And gender equality is part of the human rights, is part of our legacies, is part of our values, is part of our glue, is part of our foundation. So engaging with like-minded organizations like the EU, specialized bodies agencies from the UN, talking also to the OECD, engaging with nations that are leading either the G7 or like Italy this year, G20. I think this is something that we have to do more energetically.

Also, NATO has more than 40 partnerships across the globe with individual nations, and we are very proud of that, and we invest a lot in those. But as in NATO 2030 Secretary General Stoltenberg is, for the right reasons, making the case for even stronger engagement of NATO and support for partner nations including in countries that are more vulnerable, more fragile.

I think we have to keep in mind that gender equality and inclusiveness in what we do in terms of work and support for our partners, is an essential component of our mission of cooperative security, fully respecting the sovereignty and the interests and requirements of the nations, but I do believe that here we can do a lot, a lot of good work also in the future.

Few people know that we have a NATO center in Kuwait, which is a great piece of presence and participation. I'm very proud that NATO has responded positively to the request from United Nations for us to help training UN peacekeepers for Africa. There'll be lots of women, lots of women that will be involved in the process. I'm very happy that one of our potentially new partners, Ghana, which hosts one of the best peacekeeping training operations in Africa, the Kofi Annan Training Center, they told us that they've trained more than 30,000 peacekeepers over the last decade or so, out of which many, many are women peacekeepers, because they know how to deal with crisis. They know how to rebuild societies that are devastated by conflict and tension. We also would like to see more of that work.

And the last word about these issues that are horrific things that still happen as we speak. Sexual violence in conflict areas, child abuse, human trafficking, things that are the most horrific things that one can imagine. And this is where I think a strong NATO, and a strong partnerships of NATO and like-minded nations and countries that need us, is paramount just to make sure that we curb, and why not as Prime Minister Trudeau mentioned, make gender inequality history.

So this is where we're coming from, it’s big topic for us. It is work which is ongoing, which is transversal. In everything we do from planning to conceptualising new concepts from execution of programs, this is something that we do. And speaking of leadership, coming back to Canada, I remember that the first female Brigadier General leading the NATO mission in Iraq was Jenny Kerrigan. That's a great symbol of breaking the ceiling sometimes, when it comes also to women's participation in top leadership in our militaries. So it's a great pleasure to be with you. Thank you, Baiba, for including me. It's a privilege to share the stage with this wonderful professionals leading three key allies in our organization.