Distinguished ministers, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is resumed.

I am pleased to welcome you all to the fourth ministerial roundtable of this year’s priority theme, “Accelerating the Achievement of Gender Equality and the Empowerment of all Women and Girls by Addressing Poverty and Strengthening Institutions and Financing with a Gender Perspective.” This roundtable discussion will focus on good practices for strengthening good institutions and maximizing financing to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Allow me to briefly set the context for this roundtable discussion. Women experience higher rates of poverty than men, and the gender poverty gap is projected to persist into 2050. Globally, 10.3% of women are living in extreme poverty. If current trends continue, an estimated 8% of world’s women will still be living on less than USD $2.15 per day by 2030. Ending women and girls’ poverty requires robust and accountable public institutions. Economic institutions can develop and implement pro-poor and gender-responsive economic policies.

Ministries of finance play a crucial role in setting fiscal policy and economic management. They can mandate gender analysis in the budgetary process to maximize resource allocations for gender equality. However, these ministries often face capacity constraints to analyse gender impacts and spending policies. Through gender-responsive budgeting, governments can analyse the gender impacts of budgets and allocate resources to policies that address gender inequalities. Central to these efforts is the timeliness, accessibility of data on budget allocations and expenditures so that stakeholders can follow public resource flows and evaluate how public investments address the needs and priorities of women and girls living in poverty.

Thank you very much. I now invite the commission to begin the interactive dialogue in this Ministerial roundtable. I would like to remind speakers of the time limit of 3 minutes for interventions. As per practice, the microphones will be automatically muted when the allotted time has elapsed. I also would like to remind speakers to kindly deliver statements at a normal speaking speed and to send copies of statements to estatements@un.org.

Thank you very much.