The keynote address was given by Rachel Mayanja, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women ICW-Asia Pacific Regional Council meeting and ICW-CIF Executive meeting

Commenting on the Jakarta conference theme about achieving gender equality in the context of United Nations reform, Rachel Mayanja said

"The need for change is now almost universally acknowledged. At the country level, many challenges impede the advancement of women. Among them, to name a few, are insufficient capacity for gender mainstreaming, weak policy frameworks and accountability and monitoring mechanisms, lack of data disaggregated by sex, inadequate financial and human resources and many others.

"The result is continued gender inequality and discrimination, which hinder economic growth, sustainable development, peace and human rights.  Women bear a disproportionate burden of poverty.  They live with the harmful effects of gender based violence and bear the brunt of the

HIV/AIDS pandemic. They continue to have limited access to credit, land and new technologies, have fewer educational and employment opportunities than men and remain marginalized in decision-making.

"Fragmentation and marginalization of gender expertise have weakened the United Nations system's ability to mainstream gender equality issues  effectively into all aspects of its work.  This is particularly noticeable at the country level, where gender expertise is not effectively drawn upon by United Nations Country Teams to support gender-sensitive United Nations programming."