【摘要】

As I write this foreword, like many of my United Nations (UN) colleagues around the world, I continue to work from home due to the COVID-19 crisis. However, while the pandemic has changed how the UN operates, it has not changed our commitment to realising a more gender equal world. Gender equality and women’s rights have advanced immensely since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 25 years ago (Beijing+25). Some of the major success stories include progress in education and health. Between 1995 and 2018, for example, the number of girls of primary and lower-secondary school age who are out of school nearly halved.1 The global maternal mortality ratio declined by 38 percent from 2000 to 2017.2