World: Lack of women in key decision-making ‘should not be allowed’ – UN Women chief

World/03-12-2021/Author and Source: news.un.org

Exclusion of women in decisions that affect their lives is “bad governance [and] should not be allowed”, the UN Women chief said on Monday, International Women’s Day.

“We stand on a crossroads as we ponder the recover from a pandemic that has had a disproportionate impact women and girls”, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women said at an event celebrating the efforts of women and girls to shape a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is why, at this point in 2021, when we are at crossroads, we have to bring this to an end”, she added.

Although women have been most negatively impacted by the pandemic, Ms. Mlambo- Ngcuka shone a spotlight on the lack of women at the helm of who will be guiding the COVID recovery.

She pointed to their under representation in key institutions and emphasized that building back “will not be adequate and inclusive if it does not include women in decisions that affect their lives”.

Opportunities and responsibilities

The UN Women chief highlighted the upcoming session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) as both an opportunity and a responsibility of women leaders “to call for representation of women in all decision-making bodies”.

Recalling last year’s 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for action, when heads of States lamented the underrepresentation of women in their countries, she upheld that the CSW, which will open next Monday, can address this along with continuing gender inequality – both of which will help in COVID recovery and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed”, Ms. Mlambo- Ngcuka said.

Women battling COVID

In celebrating women who are leading their nations and communities through the pandemic, Secretary-General António Guterres said that “countries with women leaders are among those that have suffered fewer deaths and put themselves on track for recovery”.

He also noted that women’s organizations “have filled crucial gaps” in providing services and information and while women peacebuilders have played “a vital role” in public health messaging.

“70 per cent of frontline health and care workers are women – many from racially and ethnically marginalized groups and at the bottom of the economic ladder”, the UN chief said.

Right to ‘speak with authority’

Yet despite their critical roles during the pandemic, there has been a roll-back in hard-won advances in women’s rights, which he maintained harms everyone’s work towards peace and prosperity.

“In this Decade of Action” to deliver the SDGs, “we must turn things around”, said Mr. Guterres, adding, “too often, services are delivered by women, but decisions are made by men”.

“Women have an equal right to speak with authority on the decisions that affect their lives — UN chief

Just 22 countries have a woman as Head of State, only 21 per cent of Ministers are women, and women parliamentarians make up less than 25 per cent of national legislators.

“Women have an equal right to speak with authority on the decisions that affect their lives…from the pandemic to climate change, to deepening inequalities, conflict and democratic backsliding”, said the UN chief.

Power increase

While gender equality is essentially a question of power, Mr. Guterres pointed out that in our male-dominated world, “equal power will not happen by itself”.

He spelled out the need to “transform social norms…put in place laws and policies to support women in leadership…appoint women to high-level positions…tackle violence against women, both online and offline… increase access to financing for women candidates, women’s organizations and feminist movement [and] support women leaders in all their diversity and abilities”.

While Covid-19 has been “a calamity” for everyone, he said that it has also “forced a reckoning with global inequalities, fragilities and entrenched gender discrimination”.

“Women must be at the center of the recovery as we make the course corrections that the pandemic has highlighted so vividly”, concluded the Secretary-General. “This is a job for all of us”.

Gender mainstreaming

General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir highlighted that as an International Gender Champion he was working hard towards gender equality “not just when the time is right, but to make the time to discuss gender equality”.

And so he has raised the issue throughout bilateral engagements and high-level events, including in a Special Session that featured many women in science, hoping that “by passing the microphone to women” it would inspire girls and young women to fulfill their potential and participate in traditionally male-dominated fields.

“On International Women’s Day, I think it is important to reiterate the fact that women’s empowerment is something that we need to work on every single day”, the UN official said.

Source and Image: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086702

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World: Over 168 million children miss nearly a year of schooling, UNICEF says

World/03-05-2021/Author and Source: news.un.org

More than 168 million schoolchildren globally missed out on learning in class, as schools in some 14 countries remained largely shut for almost an entire year due to coronavirus-related lockdowns, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Wednesday.

“As we approach the one-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are again reminded of the catastrophic education emergency worldwide lockdowns have created”, Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, said in a news release, announcing the agency’s findings.

“With every day that goes by, children unable to access in-person schooling fall further and further behind, with the most marginalized paying the heaviest price”, she added.

According to UNICEF, nine of the 14 countries, where schools remained mostly closed between March 2020 to February 2021, are in the Latin American and Caribbean region, affecting nearly 100 million students. Of these countries, Panama kept schools closed for the most days, followed by El Salvador, Bangladesh, and Bolivia.

In addition, around 214 million children – one in seven pupils globally – missed more than three-quarters of their in-person learning, while over 888 million continue to face disruptions to their education due to full and partial school closures, according to UN data.

Prioritize schools in reopening plans

School closures have devastating consequences for children’s learning and wellbeing. The most vulnerable children and those unable to access remote learning are hit even harder, as they are at an increased risk of never returning to the classroom, sometimes forced into child labour and even child marriage, according to UNICEF.

Schoolchildren globally also rely on their schools as a place to interact with peers, seek support, access health and immunization services and a nutritious meal. The longer schools remain closed, the longer children are cut off from these critical elements of childhood, the agency added.

Executive Director Fore called on all nations to keep schools open, or prioritize them in reopening plans where they are closed.

“We cannot afford to move into year two of limited or even no in-school learning for these children. No effort should be spared to keep schools open, or prioritize them in reopening plans”, she highlighted.

UNICEF also urged governments to focus on the unique needs of every student, with comprehensive services covering remedial learning, health and nutrition, and mental health and protection measures in schools to nurture children and adolescents’ development and wellbeing.

‘Pandemic Classroom’

Also on Wednesday, UNICEF unveiled ‘Pandemic Classroom’, a model classroom made up of 168 empty desks, each desk representing one million of the children living in countries where schools have been almost entirely closed, as a “solemn reminder of the classrooms in every corner of the world that remain empty”, said the agency.

Behind each empty chair hangs an empty backpack – a placeholder for a child’s deferred potential.

After walking through the installation, set up at UN Headquarters in New York, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the staggering number of children missing out on valuable education “a tragedy”.

“We have millions of children out of school and that is a tragedy. A tragedy for them, a tragedy for their countries, a tragedy for the future of humankind”, he said.

Source and Image: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086232

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Ministers rejected school reopening plan recommended by Sage experts

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School leaders said the government’s publication of scientific advice failed to make a convincing case for the early reopening of schools in England, as the government’s chief scientific adviser said an effective testing and tracking system was necessary for more pupils to return to the classroom.

After pressure from teaching unions, the government published 12 documents presented to its Sage committee of scientific advisers looking at the effect of coronavirus on children and how schools could safely reopen to more pupils.

But union leaders said they found little in the documents to reassure staff or parents that reopening primary schools in England by Boris Johnson’s stated target of 1 June was a safe decision.

Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union said the evidence was “inconclusive”, while Geoff Barton, leader of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the government “must be able to show very clearly that its five tests have been met before it gives the green light to any wider opening from 1 June”.

Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said on Friday that Sage had been very clear that an effective “test, track and trace” mechanism was necessary in the event of schools reopening, and the sooner in place the better in order to make changes to England’s lockdown.

Roach said it remained his union’s view that no schools should reopen more widely until it was safe to do so, and that the publication of the Sage documents would only add to the uncertainty.

“[Sage] states that large-scale community testing is needed to better understand and monitor the prevalence of and susceptibility to Covid-19 in children, yet the government’s plans for the reopening of schools from 1 June are premature whilst a widespread community testing system will not be in place,” Roach said.

Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, said the Sage papers showed that “the phased, cautious return of a limited number of pupils to classrooms has been a carefully considered decision based on the best scientific and medical advice”.

“My department continues to engage with the school, college and nursery sectors and I am enormously grateful for all the planning and preparation they are doing, alongside local authorities and academy trusts,” Williamson said.

A number of local authorities have said their maintained primary schools will not be ready to reopen, while others – including Staffordshire county council, which covers Williamson’s own constituency – have left the decision up to individual schools.

The papers revealed that a low-risk scenario where pupils in England would attend school on alternating weeks was presented to the government as the most likely way to gain popular support, before ministers instead settled on their plan for a widespread reopening on 1 June.

One paper prepared by Sage’s modelling and behavioural subgroups on 16 April warned that, as a result of school closures, some children would have “experienced a shock to their education which will persist and affect their educational and work outcomes for the rest of their lives”.

A period of home learning, the experts added, would reinforce existing inequalities between children, while months off school would mean emerging learning difficulties were missed.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/22/ministers-rejected-school-reopening-plan-recommended-by-sage-experts

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