UN Women Executive Director

On April 3rd 2011, UN Women Executive Director Ms. Michelle Bachelet visited the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya while on a visit with UN World Food Programme Executive Director Ms. Josette Sheeran and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mr. Antonio Guterres. During this visit, Ms. Bachelet raised concerns over insecurity facing Somali women and girls in refugee camps in Kenya.

In other UN Women news, Ms. Bachelet delivered a speech at the 5th Global Colloquium of University Presidents at the University of Pennsylvania on April 5th 2011. During her remarks Bachelet explained that higher education is considered a privilege of the elite, but gives women options, empowers them to be independent thinkers and agents of change. Ms. Bachelet also refers to a study where only 16 percent out of a total of 585 peace agreements contained any reference to women at all (between 1990 and 2010), while only 3 percent of these peace accords contained a reference to sexual or gender based violence. Further, in only 6 ceasefire agreements, has sexual violence been identified as a ceasefire violation.

A few days later on April 7th 2011, Ms. Bachelet makes her first trip to the United States capital as the UN Women Executive Director. During her visit, Ms. Bachelet commended the US on prioritizing efforts to end violence against women in domestic and foreign policy and also through financial support to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, managed by UN Women on behalf of the UN system.

More recently, Ms. Bachelet was the closing keynote speaker at the Women's Funding Network Global Conference in New York on April 9th 2011. On the same day, she delivered a speech at the Interactive Thematic Debate of the General Assembly on the rule of law and global challenges.

Ms. Bachelet briefed the UN Security Council on April 12th on current situations of concern, including Côte d'Ivoire, and other related matters to her mandate on peace and security.

UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet
IFO Refugee Camp in Northern Kenya – 3 April 2011