Madam Chair,

I have the honour to deliver the statement on this important topic on behalf of the eight Nordic and Baltic states Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and my own country Finland.

Gender equality, women’s and girls’ rights and their empowerment, and gender mainstreaming have always been and remain important topics for all our countries, both in national and in international context.

Madam Chair,

We have taken note with pleasure of the Director General’s most recent report on Women in the Secretariat. We are extremely happy to note that the ambitious goal set back in 2020 of achieving gender-parity in the Professional and higher categories in the Secretariat by this year, has indeed been met. On 1 June this year, women represented 51.3 percent of the previously mentioned categories.

We congratulate the Director General and the Secretariat on the great progress made – enabling the goal not only to be met, but met ahead of the set deadline. This milestone deserves to be commended and celebrated. We appreciate the Director General’s personal commitment on achieving this goal.

Madam Chair,

Achieving gender-parity shows that gender-equality and advancing women’s career perspectives have not only been words on paper. The achievement shows that the Secretariat has been taking concrete, goal-oriented action with a clear objective. The Secretariat has pursued various activities to meet its aim: individual programs and initiatives, such as the well-known Marie Sklodowska-Curie-and Lisa Meitner programs, as well as consistent every-day work. Further, the Secretariat has collaborated on this topic both with the wider United Nations system as well as with Member States. The IAEA has set a great example for many other international organizations.

Chair,

In addition to maintaining the excellent results on gender parity within the Secretariat, including a focus on gender mainstreaming in the Agency’s programmatic and operative work remains key. It is important to consider gender-responsive approaches when developing and implementing programmatic work, including Technical Cooperation projects, in order to achieve good outcomes and to promote gender equality beyond the Secretariat. The Office of Internal Oversight Services has made relevant recommendations with regard to ensuring that gender is systematically mainstreamed.

Madame Chair,

Gender-equality makes not only the IAEA, but any workplace stronger and more diverse. We take note that the Secretariat is committed to continuing its work in this regard, and it has our strong support to continue to implement all four areas of its gender policy., i.e. gender balance among staff, gender mainstreaming, communication on gender issues, and promoting an enabling environment in the workplace. We as Member States will continue to do our part, including in sharing information on vacancies among relevant professional groups in order to ensure the maintaining of gender-parity at the Secretariat. In the future, we hope that the successful adoption of gender-mainstreaming policies and staffing plans can serve as an example in other personnel-related matters.

We look forward to the adoption of the draft resolution on Women in the Secretariat during the upcoming General Conference. We thank the Group of 77 for their efforts on the resolution and call for all the Member States to support it.

I thank you Chair.