Pacific GEAR Conversation with Ambassador Collin Beck

Pacific GEAR Conversation with Ambassador Collin Beck

New York City, 30 June 2011 - The Pacific islands candidate to the UN Women Executive Board wants to hear from you about the issues facing women in the Pacific region.

That was the final word from Ambassador Colin Beck of the Solomon Islands as I was getting ready to leave his office after our interview this afternoon.

The Solomon Islands is vying for a seat on the UN Women Executive Board next year, and hopes to have a say on how the new entity will work at the country level.

“We are trying to ensure the specific situations of the diversity of Pacific countries are represented,” said Ambassador Beck, when we met at the end of the last day of UN Women meetings here in New York City.

While he will be working through his government machinery, Beck says he is representing a broader group, and hopes to take the Pacific small islands developing states perspective to the UN Women Executive Board in 2010.

He also raised the importance of being open to ideas from a variety of different bodies and organisations, including women’s networks back in the Pacific. Beck has a strong focus on issues of climate change, economic empowerment and sustainable development:

“We need to try and look at peace and security from a development perspective,” he said.“These conflicts are the outcomes of problems and we need to look at these problems... of course in any conflict, the most vulnerable remain women and children”

If the candidacy is successful, the Solomon Islands will also be advocating the strengthening of UN-wise coherence, where all UN entities work together on issues and thematic work.

This is particularly important in the case of UN Women, and cross-cutting work on gender: “Sometimes we try and see gender a s separate issue, but at the end of the day it’s budget [has to be] throughout the whole of national government – it has to be system-wide.”

The Ambassador will be meeting with his counterparts in the UN-designated Asian region soon to begin garnering support for Solomon Island’s candidacy to the UN Women Executive Board. There are currently no Pacific representatives among the ten seats assigned to Asia.

Coming up tomorrow: Goodbye New York – reflecting on a week of UN Women

Tara Chetty for FemLINKPACIFIC

ENDS

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