CCG Secretary-General Mabel Miao’s Welcoming Remarks on Women’s Day Symposium

March 08 , 2022

On March 8th, the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) and UN Women China hosted “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow: a symposium on biodiversity and climate change from a gender perspective” at CCG’s Beijing headquarters.

CCG Secretary-General Mabel Miao gave welcoming remarks. Full text is as below.

Your Excellencies, members of the UN family, representatives from government agencies, business community, and academia – distinguished guests – on behalf of everyone at the Center for China and Globalization, welcome!

On this very special day for all the women and girls in China and the world, we are honored and delighted to collaborate with UN Women in China to be hosting a symposium on biodiversity and climate change from a gender perspective. First of all, I want to express my gratitude to UN Women China, for giving us enormous support on making this event happen.

It was highlighted at both COP15 and COP26 last year that as crises that the earth confronts have become more severe and urgent to be dealt with every day, a framework that delivers sustainable development that aims to include gender consideration and bend the curve of inequality that women have been facing is desperately needed.

Studies have shown that gender disparities everywhere have been causing unfair and inadequate access to resources, and many women’s livelihoods in the rural area tend to be climate-sensitive, and this is a topic will be at the center of the roundtable discussions later this afternoon.

What I would like to stress today, is that the world is in need of a wake-up call for the psychological and cultural factors that have been allowing the unjust treatment against women, and the importance of women’s role in enabling a more sustainable future for the mankind and our motherland – or as Chinese say, 大地之母. To fully realize women’s rights along the way of sustainable development, we have to up the perspective to a macro level. Just as the concept of “ecological civilization” has been emphasized in recent years, the idea of harmony with nature has been existing in our culture for a long time, and women have a natural connection to mother nature. The ancient Chinese philosophy of “Yin Yang” implies a perfect combination of two forces that complement each other and make up all aspects of life and nature as whole, and the “Yin” represents the unique female energy and softness.

Today, addressing the global challenges requires the same logic. The world needs women’s sensitiveness, women’s voice should weigh more on the decision-making of global governance matters, and on issues that are related to protecting our planet earth. Views from women should also be taken into more consideration into the process of inclusive globalization and multilateralism, for women have always been the more tolerant and compassionate gender.

As a global think tank, CCG has been showing robust support for the pursuit of SGDs, and female empowerment, especially that of female “think tankers”. More than half of our leadership team and employees are female, and we have put great weight on promoting the development of female talents. We as a think tank, believes in the power of women, and will continue to strive for promoting women’s voice and bettering the position of women in our society.

CCG and the UN agencies in China have also embraced great friendship and built a bond for many years and we really appreciate the support and collaboration with UN China. Most recently, we have supported UN Women’s “HeforShe” campaign in China, and last November, our symposium to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the restoration of PRC’s lawful seat in the UN were joined by many members of the UN family in China. As the only think tank in China granted Special Consultative Status by the UN and one of the world’s top 100 think tanks, CCG has been actively on conducting research on international development, global governance, and promoting SDGs and multilateralism in many occasions.

I sincerely hope that CCG can play a role in contributing to the process of “gender equality”, “climate action”, and “life on land” as three important SDGs being translated into reality, and the friendship between us and the UN family will flourish. I want to thank UN Women China again for your work, and thank all the participants for taking your time to come to support our initiates. Finally,I want to thank all the women who have been working tirelessly on empowering herself and her peers, as well as the men who have been supporting the female community.

I wish our afternoon discussions to be a success. Thank you all very much!

 

Keyword Mabel Lu MIAO