Women hold key to eradicating poverty: UN

Women hold the key to eradicating poverty worldwide, but must be supported in their efforts to lead families, societies and nations towards prosperity, senior UN officials told an inter-governmental meeting.

Women hold the key to eradicating poverty worldwide, but must be supported in their efforts to lead families, societies and nations towards prosperity, senior UN officials told an inter-governmental meeting on Tuesday.

Addressing the Commission on Status of Women, Josi Antonio Ocampo, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, stressed the need to ensure gender equality in order to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by a UN Summit in 2000 to tackle global ills.

"In order to reduce extreme poverty, enhance social integration and achieve gender equality, we must be able to reconcile economic growth, employment generation and social and gender equality policies," he said at a meeting in New York.

He noted that men must play an active role in this endeavour. "It is important to identify the positive efforts already made by men and boys in many contexts and to find ways to encourage and support other men to understand the value of gender equality and to become active in its promotion."

Assistant Secretary General Angela E V King, the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, cautioned that despite growing awareness of the need for gender equality, in many countries womens' rights are still under threat.

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