Category: Press Releases

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 8 March 2023.

Women and girls will be at heart of UK’s international work as Foreign Secretary launches new strategy to tackle gender inequality around the world.

• Foreign Secretary James Cleverly launches new Women and Girls Strategy during a visit to his mother’s hometown in Sierra Leone
• strategy aims to tackle increasing threats to gender equality from climate change, humanitarian crises, conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, and recent attempts to roll back women’s rights, including in countries like Iran and Afghanistan
• the Foreign Secretary also announces a new emphasis on supporting grassroots women’s rights organisations, and funding for a Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights programme that will support an estimated 10 million women

Women and girls will be put at the heart of the UK’s international work, with a new strategy that will tackle gender inequality across the globe.

Launching on International Women’s Day, the new strategy will set out how the UK will work to tackle global gender inequality at every opportunity, including combatting attempts to roll back women’s rights, and work with partners around the world to do the same. For the first time, this strategy commits the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to more than 80% of its bilateral aid programmes including a focus on gender equality by 2030.

Progress towards gender equality is increasingly under threat. Climate change and humanitarian crises continue to disproportionately affect women and girls, there are attempts to row back on women’s rights including in countries like Iran and Afghanistan, sexual violence is happening in conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere and violence against women is growing online.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said:

Advancing gender equality and challenging discrimination is obviously the right thing to do, but it also brings freedom, boosts prosperity and trade, and strengthens security – it is the fundamental building block of all healthy democracies.

Our investment to date has improved lives around the world, with more girls in school, fewer forced into early marriage and more women in top political and leadership roles.

But these hard-won gains are now under increasing threat. We’re ramping up our work to tackle the inequalities which remain, at every opportunity.

The Foreign Secretary will launch the new strategy in Sierra Leone, where he is visiting a school and a hospital in his mother’s hometown of Bo, to see how UK-funded projects are having a positive impact on women and girls.

In the hospital, he will see how UK support is improving blood banks and equipment, increasing electricity access and saving the lives of pregnant women. In the school he will hear about girls’ aspirations for the future. The UK is supporting students there to talk about preventing violence.

The strategy puts a continued focus on educating girls, empowering women and girls, championing their health and rights and ending gender-based violence – the challenges the UK believes are most acute.

It commits the FCDO to involving its entire network of high commissions and embassies around the world to deliver the strategy. This will include UK heads of mission developing plans and commitments specific to their host country and raising the most pressing issues with their host governments. The UK will also develop an ambitious new research offer to help the UK and its partners make investment decisions.

Alongside the strategy, the Foreign Secretary will announce a new women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights programme, focused on sub-Saharan Africa, which has some of the highest rates of child marriage and maternal mortality in the world.

Reaching up to 10.4 million women, the programme will receive up to £200 million and is expected to prevent up to 30,600 maternal deaths, 3.4 million unsafe abortions and 9.5 million unintended pregnancies.

Separately, the UK is also increasing support for women’s rights organisations and movements, recognising their critical role in advancing gender equality and protecting rights, and amplifying grassroots women’s and girls’ voices. Most of this £38 million programme will be delivered through a new partnership with the Equality Fund.

Jess Tomlin, co-CEO of the Equality Fund said:

We’re really excited about this partnership because it shows that every sector can come together – with boldness and urgency – to deliver resources to women’s rights organisations everywhere. A just, sustainable, thriving future depends on the solutions of feminist movements, and it’s time for all of us to trust and robustly resource their leadership at scale all across the world.

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 7 March 2023.

The Minister for the Americas reinforced the shared commitment of the UK and Paraguay to strengthen ties after marking 170 years of bilateral relations.

The British Embassy in Asunción received the visit of MP David Rutley, the Parliament Under Secretary of State for the Americas and the Caribbean on 2 to 3 March 2023. The visit occurred on the 170-anniversary of relations between the 2 countries, almost to the day. Among his visit priorities were climate change, business, energy and education.

The visit began with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Finance. This MoU will allow for continued support to the Chevening scholarship programme, a key pillar of collaboration in education between Paraguay and the UK.

Minister Rutley also held meetings with the business sector, civil society and with presidential and vice presidential candidates for the general elections in April 2023. A highlight of his visit was a tour of the Itaipú hydroelectric dam and technological park, during which he learned more about Itaipú’s provision for the future use of its clean energy production, including its great potential in green hydrogen and ammonia.

As part of the visit, Minister Rutley also participated in the signing of an MoU with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for increased bilateral exchange. During the signing, participants could appreciate the original 1853 Treaty on Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between UK and Paraguay.

The visit concluded with a commemoration event at the Asunción Train Station, a joint event with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The train station is a symbol of historical bilateral relations between Paraguay and the UK. During the event, Paraguay’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Julio Arriola and Minister Rutley unveiled a commemorative plaque. The minister was also able to enjoy some traditional Paraguayan music, dance and food.

Minister for the Americas David Rutley said:

Paraguay is a natural ally to the UK in values, education and climate change. A clean-energy powerhouse, it shows potential to become a major player in green hydrogen.

I look forward to continued UK investment in Paraguay, and to increase trade both ways.

The press release issued by Foreign Office on 7 March 2023.

Statement by Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon at the UN Security Council open debate on women, peace and security.

May I begin by first thanking you Madam President, and thanking Mozambique for taking the lead in our important and vital discussions today and setting our sights on the 25th anniversary of Resolution 1325. And in doing so, I join others in recognising the insightful, valuable and expert contributions of Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women; Mirjana Egger of the ICRC; my dear friend who I see on screen, Madame Diop, it’s always great to see you and hear from you as well; and of course, the inspirational Leymah Gbowee for their contributions.

Madam President, colleagues, your Excellencies. Peace and security mechanisms must be built upon the needs of everyone, of all people, everywhere. And they must be shaped by the voices of all people. Indeed, those were the founding principles of the very organisation in which we sit today, the United Nations.

This Council, this Security Council, knows that mediation, conflict prevention and resolution have proven more successful time and time again when they are inclusive. They work better. They last longer when women are central to peace and building progressive societies. The evidence is there staring us in the face. Yet it is an undeniable fact. Here we sit in 2023 and we are seeing tragically, a stagnation of the women, peace and security agenda and a regression in women’s rights around the world. As we were most notably reminded, it’s not just through the barrel of a gun, but as Ms. Lema Govey reminded us, it is a shared denial of women’s rights, be they economic, social or educational.

We are seeing concerted efforts to weaponise gender and attempts to weaken the international system and destabilise the principles and fundamentals of democracies around the world. For our part, the United Kingdom resolves to not just protect, but to strengthen gender equality. And this should remain an absolute commitment for us all. I therefore call upon colleagues and nations here to stand together against the rollback of fundamental human rights, when the rights of women and girls are pivotal and central to a society’s and country’s progress and prosper.

The United Kingdom is therefore committed and we are passionate to see and ensure progress on women, peace and security in all its aspects. I was delighted that only last month we launched our fifth National Action Plan, which sets out how we will ensure that we put women at the centre of conflict resolution peacebuilding programmes over the next five years. It is a new plan, a reinvigorated plan for a new global context. Colleagues have listed the tragedies of conflicts around the world – from the suppression of the rights of women in Iran and the tragedy of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, where we’ve seen the Taliban’s suppression of the rights of women and girls using the false narrative and the erroneous narrative of trying to justify their abhorrent actions through religion and culture.

Let us be absolutely clear in what we say.

There is no religion, no culture which calls for the suppression of women’s rights.

The Taliban should realise this – face up to the reality – that it is only their country’s progress will be guaranteed when the rights of women and girls are secured in all their elements.

We also see the suppression through conflict of the rights, through the tragedy of war. The rights of women. The weaponising of rape as a weapon of war in conflict such as Ukraine. The war on Ukraine continues.

The rights of women continue to be suppressed in other areas, such as Tigray and Yemen, where conflicts continue. We also see the regression of women’s rights, but therefore it is important. We also recognise, as we are doing at this CSW, that these threats are not just limited in country.

There are transnational threats such as climate and cyber as well. But it is not only our commitment overseas, we are embedding the same principles of ensuring women are central and pivotal to all the solution, every facet of society in our democratic domestic systems, military cooperation and international diplomacy.

Frankly, every country that talks this narrative together, we need to walk the walk if we want to make genuine progress by 2025. One of the key objectives of our new plan is to prevent gender based violence, including conflict related sexual violence, and importantly, to support incredible, courageous survivors to recover and seek justice to rebuild their lives.

As the UK Prime Minister’s Special Representative Representative for Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, I was honoured and humbled to host our recent conference back in November, which demonstrated a sustained international resolve to end these heinous crimes.

We saw 53 countries come together and the Special Representative of the Secretary General, Pramila Patten, signed the political declaration. 40 countries made tangible national commitments on steps they intended to take. The truth is, it’s a fundamental fact, a tragic fact, that in 2023, sexual violence in conflict is real. It is happening. Therefore, I was delighted my dear friend and colleague, the UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announced a new three year PSVI (Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict) Strategy backed by over £12 million of new funding to build accountability and justice around the world. And looking ahead, it is important that we hold ourselves to account through the new International Alliance, which I’m delighted to announce on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, which will bring together leading Member States.

And I’m delighted that we are also joined at the Security Council by my dear friend, the Deputy Minister from Colombia, who again, as we were reminded by the Minister from Ecuador, had made great strides on this important agenda.

And therefore, I call upon all nations here, present and colleagues join us, join us together in strengthening this alliance to ensure that those incredible courageous survivors of sexual violence are not just given a voice, but are pivotal and central in building our international strategy to ensure that we prevent sexual violence in conflict.

We ensure that accountability is inherent and that we fully engage with survivor voices.

I ask governments to embed survivor voices in their own peacebuilding systems. We’ll be glad to share our experiences. And for me personally, through working with these incredible survivors, it has demonstrated that through their direct input, their direct action, our policies and programmes are directly impacted in a most positive way, enriched by their experience and their valuable advice and courage in speaking out.

Colleagues, Madam President.

23 years on from Resolution 1325, we must not resolve just to stabilise and strengthen rights. We should work to ensure that we put women at the heart of every conflict resolution. We put women at the heart of building stability and security around the world.

Let us not look back in another 23 years to say that we squandered the opportunity. Indeed, I know we will not. We owe it to those who have suffered in the past, to those women and girls who are suffering today.

We must not let this incredible opportunity pass us by.

And to all the incredible women and girls around the world who suffer at the hands of repressive, regressive regimes, we must act. We must act now.

Simply put, it is our duty. It is our obligation. Thank you, Madam President.

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 7 March 2023.

Statement delivered by the UK’s Ambassador to the WTO and UN in Geneva, Simon Manley, for Item 2 General Debate.

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 7 March 2023.

Dr Richard Montgomery CMG has been appointed British High Commissioner to the Federal Republic of Nigeria in succession to Ms Catriona Laing CB who will be transferring to another Diplomatic Service appointment. Mr Montgomery will take up his appointment during April 2023.

Curriculum Vitae

Full name: Richard Hugh Montgomery

Married to: Naheed Bilgrami

Children: Two

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 7 March 2023.

Statement delivered by the UK’s Ambassador to the WTO and UN in Geneva, Simon Manley, on behalf of the Sri Lanka Core Group.