UN-Women Head praises Egypt's efforts preserving women’s needs while fighting COVID-19

CAIRO – 28 May 2020: Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Women, H.E. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, has praised the efforts currently being undertaken by Egypt to face the repercussions of the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), taking into consideration the needs of Egyptian women.

Mlambo-Ngcukahas also expressed her happiness at the cooperation between the Egyptian government, the United Nations family and UN Women Egypt in this framework.

This came in her letter sent to the Egyptian Mission in New York and the National Council for Women in Egypt; in which she also expressed her admiration for the issued women policy tracker on monitoring policies and measures taken by the government to support women during curbing the spread of COVID-19, which introduces different kinds of women’s challenges and needs.

"I am particularly impressed by the Women policy tracker on Responsive policies and Programs During COVID-19 Pandemic, I would like to commend also the leadership of the Egyptian government on ensuring that the response has a gender lens, and the tracker serves as an opportunity to ensure that no policy is gender blind, of note is the decision to increase financial support to rural women,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said

Mlambo-Ngcuka emphasized that all countries’ individual and collective response to this unprecedented crisis can ensure that women’s rights, well-being, and economic autonomy are part of the short term responses and longer-term recovery.

She further noted that this will not only benefit women but will contribute to making these efforts more effective and to building the inclusive, equal and more resilient societies we need to address this crisis.

Mlambo-Ngcuka also stressed the UN-Women will continue supporting the Egyptian government in the fight against covid19 and in all efforts to achieve sustainable development to empower women and girls.

The Egyptian Mission in New York had previously addressed the Undersecretary and Executive Director of UN Women and the missions of member states of the organization to emphasize the need for international cooperation and sharing of experiences and information in order to overcome this urgent challenge facing humanity, and to highlight the Egyptian precedent in preparing plans and programs responsive to women needs while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Egyptian delegation circulated the report prepared by the National Council for Women on the proposed policies and programs towards the status of women when facing the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the women policy tracker of those policies and programs.

The Egyptian government was the first globally to issue a policy paper and a women policy tracker to monitor policies and programs, responsive to women needs, which were taken by the Government during the reduction of the spread of the covid19. The women policy tracker has tracked 52 measures, policies and decisions taken by the Egyptian government during the first two months ever since COVID-19 hit Egypt.