The importance of this conference is really about making life better
for men and women, vulnerable populations, populations at risk,
in the expeditionary ops that we do.
To do that we need to get better at
how do we examine and gather intelligence on the ground.
And the best way to do that obviously is to build a network
and the sharing of lessons, best practices,
and just our collective experiences.
Part of my job is to try and find suitable people
to deploy on UN missions to be military gender advisors.
And I feel from a selfish perspective, the UN now has a really good
network of women and men that it can talk to.
Gender advisors are officers who are advisors to the commander,
who assist the commander in integrating the gender perspective
into operations.
Gender advisors are used at strategic and operational levels.
And that brings me to why this conference is so important.
It brings nations together to tackle gender related issues.
In matters of defence, it is critical that we work together
to develop our understanding of how women and girls
as well as other unique groups are impacted differently by conflict.
Symposiums like this one facilitate sharing of information
and best practices.
They move us closer to developing a global strategy
to address these issues.
Two things resonate most with me.
The first is the ability to talk with like-minded nations,
in a lot of detail about what we’re doing,
in an area where the capability is still new and still evolving.
And the second thing I think is just the ability to form
or to reinforce life’s personal links.
Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity.
Keep doing the great work
and I look forward to hearing about who’s going to be hosting
next year’s conference as well.
So thank you very much.