As delivered

Excellencies, Distinguished delegates,

It is my pleasure to join you to call attention to the impact of climate change and land degradation on rural women and girls.

I thank the government of Mongolia for hosting us – and for your leadership on women’s rights and land!

I thank UNCCD, the Convention Secretariats and sister UN agencies here today, along with the public, private and civil society stakeholders and partners in the room.

Excellencies and friends, widespread drought and desertification, climate shocks, economic insecurity, social and political backlash continue to push back progress on gender equality.

Rural women and girls are often on the front lines of these crises and are suffering disproportionately from natural resource exploitation that largely benefits men and further drives inequalities like gender-based violence.

At the same time, rural women and girls – and I especially acknowledge those from land-locked developing countries like Mongolia - are climate defenders, biodiversity stewards and community resilience champions – key stakeholders in environmental action yet too often left out of decision making.

As leaders, we must put women’s rights front and center to address these challenges.

The context of this reality is stark -

Only 14 out of 190 countries have equal rights between women and men by law.

For rural women, land tenure is especially important yet women continue to be denied rights to inherit property in over 100 countries and less than one-in-five landholders worldwide are women.

We cannot sustainably manage and restore land, adapt to climate change and build a sustainable future without half of the world’s population.

Yet, there is important progress and promise to note.

We have strong evidence that women’s empowerment in environmental action is associated with better results – at UNDP we see from contexts such as Armenia, Brazil, Mali, that improving women’s land and water tenure leads to improved outcomes in local climate adaptation, land restoration and, importantly, gains in gender equality.

We know that diverse women’s leadership is linked to more effective environment projects, legislation outcomes and much more.

And key partners acknowledge this as well - every major climate and environmental financing mechanism and agreement, led by the Rio Conventions, has established gender equality commitments - that is progress to acknowledge and celebrate.

And I'm proud that UNDP is a leader in addressing these inter-linked issues.

Our environment work, with the ambition of our Gender Equality Strategy, is a vehicle for integration - and accelerating change.

Through our Global Environment Facility portfolio, we're working to close gender gaps in 113 countries; through our Climate Promise we've helped 77 countries implement gender and climate commitments; and our Nature Pledge is supporting 140 countries to restore biodiversity while reducing gender inequalities.

In Mongolia, we have embedded gender equality in the country's just transition and climate processes, including carbon markets.

But, of course, colleagues, much more needs to be done - more to shift the systems and power structures that perpetuate gender inequality - and more to address the interconnected planetary crises we are facing. More catalytic funding is especially needed.

An element of progress was the so-called Rio Trio, which was born here last September. It brings together the Secretariats of the three conventions and the Presidents of the three conventions. We hope Mongolia, Armenia, and Brazil can actually carry on this process going into the future.

We remain convinced that investing in gender equality is one of the most important contributions we can make to human and sustainable development.

Let us work together -  and continue looking forward to COP17 in Ulaanbaatar - to take forward an ambitious agenda on land resilience.