联合国文件/第972部分 (共1000部分)

Ms. Gomes (Portugal), speaking on behalf of the European Union; the candidate countries Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey; the stabilization and association process countries Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia; and, in addition, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, said that the European Union wished to reiterate the relevance of human rights protection, including the right to food, in the context of poverty eradication.

It fully agreed with the broad definition of poverty as encompassing various dimensions besides income, such as access to health and social services, education, gender equality, social exclusion, powerlessness and lack of voice or representation.

Even in developed countries, pockets of poverty and social exclusion persisted, so that renewed efforts targeted at disadvantaged groups were needed.

The National Action Plans for Inclusion in place in States members of the European Union represented a coordinated policy framework for addressing poverty among children, women and vulnerable groups.

The European Union also attached particular importance to the promotion of public-private partnerships as an important tool for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, including poverty eradication.

As recognized in the 2005 European Consensus for Development, poverty eradication and sustainable development continued to be of the utmost importance in an increasingly globalized and interdependent world.

The Consensus underlined the importance of policy coherence for development, ensuring that European Union policies in such areas as trade, security and integration contributed to developing countries' efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

The European Union believed it was important to strengthen the United Nations gender architecture in order to address both normative and operative concerns in accordance with the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security.

Deficiencies arising from the current fragmentation of the gender architecture system, which was also incoherent and under-resourced, needed to be addressed.

Comprehensive gender-sensitive poverty-eradication strategies, allowing for the full and equal participation of women in policy-setting and decision-making, were needed to address the feminization of poverty, guarantee women their human rights and enhance women's contribution to economic and social development.

The adoption of the Roadmap for Equality Between Women and Men for the period 2006-2010, the European Pact for Gender Equality and the Regulation establishing the European Institute for Gender Equality testified to the Union's continued commitment to achieving genuine equality between women and men.

The European Commission's Communication on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Development Cooperation, adopted in March 2007, and the European Council's Conclusions on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Development Cooperation, adopted in May 2007, provided a clear European Union response to the gender commitments set out in the European Consensus for Development.

Although women were driving European Union job growth, they still faced barriers to equality.

In spite of some welcome changes, mainly as a result of the gender mainstreaming approach adopted in all European Union policies and activities, horizontal and vertical labour segregation still had a negative impact on women's participation in the labour force, particularly at the decision-making level.

One well-documented reason for that unequal representation was the dual role women still played at work and in the family.

Developing measures to reconcile family and professional responsibilities was therefore fundamental, and the role of men in the reconciliation of work and family life also needed to be encouraged.

The European Union affirmed its strong support for and commitment to the full implementation of the Cairo Programme of Action adopted at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) as well as the key actions for the further implementation of the Conference Programme of Action agreed at the five-year review, the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and the Programme of Action of the World Summit on Social Development.

Gender equality could not be achieved without guaranteeing women's sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Education in technology was an important tool for empowering people and expanding their economic and social opportunities and should be placed at the centre of national development strategies.

In the States members of the European Union, specific measures and programmes had been established to combat info-exclusion and provide opportunities for men and women of all ages to acquire basic knowledge and skills to boost their participation in social and economic life.

Since 2000, the European Union had been pursuing the goal, to be achieved by 2010, of becoming one of the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economies in the world.

The revised Lisbon Strategy and the subsequent Integrated Guidelines for Growth and Jobs (2005-2008 ) adopted by the Council of the European Union had placed an even stronger emphasis on the need to invest more in research and development underpinned by technological innovation and in human capital, a key determinant of economic growth in a knowledge-based economy.

The European Union endorsed the focus on the role of biotechnology in providing a way forward in agriculture and medicine.

The European Commission's recent midterm review of the Strategy on Life Sciences and Biotechnology (2007) provided an important framework for the development of a competitive and sustainable bio-economy.