Anne Hathaway's call to action on #IWD2024

Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies, distinguished guests.

To you, and especially to all the women and girls of the world – but also to all men and

boys – I say: Happy International Women’s Day! I am honoured to have been invited to speak.

I’d like to reflect on today’s theme: “Invest in women, accelerate progress.”

The creativity, insight, knowledge, and expertise of women in every sector of our societies,

right across our world - from footballers to tech entrepreneurs to climate smart farmers

to home-based mothers caring for their families, often on top of earning a living - these skills

have never been more advanced and undeniable. We should all be so inspired by the determination

and strong voices of young women leading climate action; by the courage of women human rights

defenders. I must say, I am personally so moved by the extraordinary resilience of the more than 614

million women and girls living in conflict areas across the world, who are keeping their families

alive in the face of destruction and deprivation. Today more than ever, we see women holding

positions of power in all aspects of society. Thank goodness.

After all, we are still, as we always have been, half the world.

Which begs the question: if we share this world in equal numbers, why aren’t we valued equally?

Because the ongoing, disgraceful reality is that women are not valued equally. Our current

global economic system is failing women. Official Development Assistance (ODA) is

more than 200 billion dollars. But just 4 per cent of ODA had gender equality and

women’s empowerment as a principal objective and just 0.3 per cent of ODA is directed

toward ending violence against women and girls. There is an outrageous discrepancy between what

is so clearly needed and what gets prioritized. So let’s stop this absurd double standard and

finally invest in women as we deserve. For example, these days, the world is

spending more on fighting than ever, even though the vital stability brought by peace

is the only true enabler of progress. World military expenditure jumped 9%

to a record 2.2 trillion dollars last year. How do we accept that that money was made readily

available, when a fraction of it – an additional 360 billion dollars each year - is the cost of

achieving gender equality across key global goals, including the goals of ending poverty and hunger?

Yet we are repeatedly told “there just isn’t enough right now”, “it isn’t the right time”,

“change happens slowly - be patient”. I think I speak for a great many of us

when I say the limits of patience have been thoroughly explored.

If we value lives lived in prosperity and peace; lives lived without fear of violence;

space in family life for leisure, learning and fair earning; the opportunities to look ahead

and be part of a new world of work, then surely, surely we have reached the point

where we can successfully argue women’s rights to share in such a world equally.

Perhaps we can even agree that this matter is past the point of arguing.

So today, I ask you, each with your own power to decide, to vote, to influence,

to spend - what do you truly value? What will you lead investment in? Will you accelerate the

change we so desperately need, and make this the moment where we boldly and fairly invest in women?

I hope so.

Thank you.