International Women's Day: Inauguration of a collaborative street art project
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me welcome you to this exciting project to mark the International Women's Day in an unusual setting for the diplomatic community!
I would like to thank very much the Start India Foundation for partnering with us and an Artist, NeSpoon, for her inspiring work, I also welcome other speakers who have agreed to be with us today, in particular Ambassador Lakshmi Puri, Former UN Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Director of UN Women, a UN agency with whom the EU has a very close relationship with.
Many events are taking place today in Europe and in India, and the EU delegation to India is happy to contribute to such an inspiring number of events bringing visibility to women's rights.
International Women's Day is an opportunity to discuss where we collectively stand on gender equality and attract public attention on what remains to be done.
This year's theme as set up by the UN is "innovation for gender equality and women's empowerment" and I'm happy that the EU Delegation to India "innovated" with a very different project than what we usually do!
I hope that our contribution today through arts in the public space will not only reach a very large audience but also contribute to break gender stereotypes and advance gender equality & the empowerment of women and girls.
What this street art project demonstrates is that the quest for gender equality and the empowerment of women are universal: whether in Europe or in India, whether through ancient techniques and crafts or through contemporary means, women express a strong message of equality and empowerment that we all must listen and act upon to break gender stereotypes.
I am very proud that this particular project involved women from Europe and India, with a women curator, a woman artist, and 3 different communities of Indian women involved at different stages in the workshop on crafts techniques, the beautiful rangoli, and the street performance. We are glad to offer a space for cross cultural interactions bringing women's empowerment to the forefront, in the public space.
Ladies and gentlemen, The EU places gender equality at the centre of its work, internally and externally, through multiple partnerships with multilateral and regional partners.
Internally, I would cite the recent Gender Equality Progress Report, initiatives on violence against women and on anti-trafficking, and some recent legislative advancement on work-life balance.
Externally, Gender Equality is one of the top priorities of our development cooperation and our political dialogues, and the EU supports numerous initiatives, including at the global level with the UN such as the Spotlight Initiative to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, or the EU/UN Partnership on Gender Equality for Development and Peace, but also some political initiatives such as the recent Women Foreign Ministers Roundtable.
At the bilateral level with India, gender equality is mainstreamed through the whole development cooperation.
Gender equality and the empowerment of women were a cornerstone of EU delegation's cultural and public diplomacy campaigns in recent years, with exchanges and events related to literature, photography, opera and other cultural forms, as well as with dedicated campaigns for various international days that relate to gender, including a powerful initiative on Indian girls taking over of the job of various Delhi-based Ambassadors!
Despite our efforts, there is still a long way to go before women occupy the place they deserve in our societies. But I also see substantial progress both in Europe and in India. We will need to keep our efforts and our political will to improve the situation.
It will take governments and the business community to work together to make this happen. Women often bear the heaviest burden of various forms of discriminations, and on this day, we would like to reiterate the hope of a major shift in mind-sets to ensure full equality for the benefit of the whole society, and we hope that today's events contributes to this.
The EU is committed to working together with governments and civil society partners to continue to raise awareness around the empowerment of women, and to advocate for greater gender parity and equal access to opportunities, whether through arts, through concrete development projects or through public diplomacy. Because investing in women and girls is investing in fair and prosperous and sustainable development, for the benefits of all in society.