STATEMENT OF NETHERLANDS, OCTOBER, 2015

But over the next 15 years, the world’s fate will be largely determined by whether or not women succeed in taking their rightful place in history. Do we want to achieve our global goals? Fight inequality? Create lasting peace? We need the women of the world to do that. Let us therefore all step up our support to organizations like Karama, a regional non- governmental organization based in Cairo that works throughout the Middle East in coalition with hundreds of partners to end violence against women.

Fifteen years ago, the Netherlands, as a member of the Security Council at the time, was one of the main advocates of resolution 1325 (2000). I was personally involved then and feel very strongly about it. Now we are aspiring to become a Security Council member again, partly in order to support increasing the pace of the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) and its successor, resolution 2242 (2015). We think we have something to offer — the desire and the capacity to stand up and invest in women who are the drivers of change. It is time, as Elvis Presley put it in one of his many classic songs, for “A little less conversation, [and] a little more action”.