Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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458. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the steps that his Department is taking with respect to promoting International Women's Day; the steps he is taking to promote gender equality in the developing world; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13464/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Achieving gender equality is at the core of Ireland’s foreign and development policies. Our approach is informed by our own national journey and the political and social transformation that continues to take place in Ireland.

The Department of Foreign Affairs actively promotes gender equality in relevant multilateral fora, including through our current membership of the UN Security Council, as well as through debates, resolutions, and statements elsewhere at the UN, such as the Commission on the Status of Women and the Human Rights Council. Likewise, our bilateral missions engage with host Governments and civil society to host numerous events, including in recent years the promotion of St Brigid’s Day as a celebration of women’s achievements in Ireland and further afield.

This year, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, we are co-hosting a UN Security Council Open Arria-formula meeting on the theme of “Call to lead by example: ensuring the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in UN led Peace Processes”. Internally, the Department is inviting a distinguished panel of women activists to reflect on how lessons from Ireland’s gender equality journey can continue to inform our foreign policy, including in the light of setbacks to women’s equality arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

As regards the developing world specifically, 'A Better World: Ireland’s Policy for International Development' establishes gender equality as one of four policy priorities and recognises that gender equality is fundamental for the transformation required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

'A Better World' commits that we will have an overarching focus on women and girls in all our development partnerships and interventions. Ireland is committed to taking a transformative approach to gender equality, recognising that achieving gender equality involves going beyond looking at individual women and girls and requires approaches that seek to address the key structural and institutional barriers to achieving gender equality and ensuring a focus on men, boys and masculinities. 'A Better World' adopts a twin-track approach in committing to integrate gender equality across all our interventions and to increasing allocations to interventions directly dedicated to achieving gender equality. These commitments include increased funding for women’s rights organisations; strengthened support for women’s political participation; intensifying our work on Women, Peace and Security and on Gender Based Violence; increased engagement on women’s economic empowerment; prioritising education for girls in our commitments in education; and deepening and expanding our engagement on sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Ireland is consistently ranked by the OECD Development Assistance Committee as among the OECD member countries with the highest gender equality focus in official development assistance (ODA). In 2019, approximately 76% of Ireland’s bilateral allocable ODA contributed to gender equality and women’s empowerment.