#HeForShe Impact Summit, 31 May 2023, 10am-12pm

 JOINT PRESS RELEASE

#HeForShe Impact Summit: Stronger Together, Amplifying Partnerships for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

The European Union and UN Women as Co-Chairs of the #HeForShe Movement are pleased to announce the 5^th Edition of the #HeForShe Impact Summit, taking place on May 31^st, 2023 in Harare. This summit serves as a platform for #HeForShe Champions to share experiences, exchange ideas and best practices as well as affirm and reaffirm their commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment. This year’s Summit will be hosted under the theme ‘Strengthening Partnerships for Gender Equality and the Women’s Empowerment’, and it will explore strategies for cultivating and harnessing multi-stakeholder synergies for gender equality.

“The #HeForShe Impact Summit provides a crucial platform for us to come together and drive collective action towards gender equality and women’s empowerment,” says H.E Jobst von Kirchmann, the EU Ambassador and Co-Chair of the Movement. “Through strengthened partnerships, we can create meaningful change and ensure a more inclusive society for all.”

 “The focus for this year’s #HeForShe Impact Summit allows us to consolidate our thoughts, strategies and efforts toward gender equality and women’s empowerment while leveraging unique capacities and capabilities. It is important for us to reflect: How are we working together? How can we do more and achieve greater impact?”- Ms. Fatou Lo, UN Women Country Representative

The summit will also witness the on-boarding of additional #HeForShe Champions including  Private Sector Leaders, Youths Leaders and Civil Society Leaders. Additionally, UN Women and the European Union will acknowledge 60 youth Innovators Against Gender-Based Violence (IAGs), who have been actively promoting the #HeForShe movement in rural areas of Zimbabwe and contributing significantly to research on Gender at Masters Level through the EU funded Spotlight Initiative.

The summit will host 100 participants, including government officials, diplomats, UN Agency representatives, business leaders, civil society organisations and youth activists. It will involve engaging dialogues, awareness building and a press conference to share the outcomes of the event.

NOTES FOR THE EDITOR

The Zimbabwean Constitution has gender equality among the founding values.  It recognises equality of the sexes and prohibits sex discrimination.  The Government has a national gender policy in place, which aims to promote gender equality and outlines how this will be achieved.  Gender equality is also a priority of the National Development Strategy 1.

About the #HeForShe Movement

#HeForShe is UN Women’s global solidarity movement that engages men and boys as advocates and agents of change for the achievement of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE). The movement encourages men and women in local communities, the diplomatic corps, private sector, academia and government institutions to collaborate in promoting women’s rights and gender equality. The movement creates networks of #HeForShe Champions who work side by side to cross-share experiences and ideas on gender equality and male engagement promote peer-to-peer accountability and jointly advocate for gender equality and women’s empowerment. #HeForShe also enables champions to make personal and/or professional commitments towards gender equality and track progress on those commitments.

About UN Women

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality, enshrined in the charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system-wide efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action and impact throughout the world. UN Women offers strong and coherent coordination, thought leadership and facilitates convening of stakeholders including rights holders, duty bearers, government, civil society, private sector, donors, financial institutions, academia, youth and other actors for the achievement of Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and girls

About the European Union

Gender equality is one of the core principles among the EU's founding values and treaty objectives; therefore, the EU is committed globally to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment and to ending violence against women and girls.  The EU strongly believes that empowering women and girls is not only the right thing to do but also the smart and humane thing to do.  The EU has placed gender equality at the centre of development cooperation and this is aptly reflected in the Multi-annual Indicative Programme for Zimbabwe (2021-2027).  The EU has set itself an ambitious target of ensuring that at least 85% of all new programmes will have gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment as a principal or a significant objective.  Working collectively as “Team Europe” the EU and its Member States, together with Switzerland, have committed over €300M, for the period 2021-2027, towards gender specific and gender mainstreaming actions under the Team Europe Initiative on Gender in Zimbabwe.

The EU fully financed the Spotlight Initiative in Zimbabwe, a joint EU-UN partnership, to eliminate violence against women and girls to the tune of USD 30M from 2019-2023. The EU will continue to build on the gains of the Spotlight initiative by supporting the Government and other stakeholders to implement the high-level political compact, signed at the highest level of the State, for enhanced GBV prevention and response.  Other areas of focus will include awareness raising on constitutional rights, training in business skills, access to finance and participation in decision-making. The EU will work together with multiple stakeholders, including like-minded development partners, to eradicate GBV in the private and public spheres.

For media inquiries please contact

Simbarashe Moyo, #HeForShe Focal Point, UN Women, simbarashe.moyo@unwomen.org

Innocent Katsande, Communications Officer, UN Women, innocent.katsande@unwomen.org

Alexandra Maseko, Press and Information Officer, Delegation of the European Union, Alexandra.Maseko@eeas.europa.eu