Good morning. It’s wonderful to be with all of you this morning, what a great way to start the week.

I am proud to speak to you today in my role as an Influencer for the Deliver for Good campaign.

As Katja said: Deliver for Good is a global campaign that applies a gender lens to the Sustainable Development Goals and promotes 12 critical investments in girls and women – investments that evidence shows will have a positive impact, so not just for the individual girl or woman, but also for those around her.

For me, one of the things that make the ‘Deliver for Good’ campaign unique and inspiring is that rather than focusing on the problems girls and women face – we know them all to well – it focuses on solutions and benefits.  It breaks the silo mentality that has dominated global development for decades, and champions’ collaborative approaches and innovative solutions.

Since it launched in 2016 at the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen, the Deliver for Good campaign has helped partnerships to develop between organizations that may not have thought it obvious to work together previously. We see people here today that are active in the campaign and who represent  so many different sectors and so many different areas of development; Health, education, nutrition, economics, the environment, the women’s movement, land rights, water, sanitation, and many more. The campaign is achieving what it set out to do; to unify around common goals.

The nearly 300 organizations that have joined the Deliver for Good campaign from across the globe are in agreement and know that when we invest in girls and women, they power progress for all. We can also agree, that working together and collaborating is much more productive – and a much smarter way to design and implement new solutions, in stead of competing and duplicating.

I have the distinct honor and pleasure to officially announce the three countries that have been identified as the first focus countries of an exciting new phase of work for the campaign.

I understand that much work and thought has been put into the selection by the Deliver for Good Advisory Group members.  The assessment has been very thorough and I am happy to announce that  - India, Kenya and Senegal have been selected as the three initial focus countries of the Deliver for Good campaign.

These three countries represent immense potential when it comes to taking leadership and action for gender equality in the new sustainable development era. And I can only imagine the positive change this work can have in the lives of girls and women and thereby men and boys. 

Now the important work begins: the selected countries will  begin to mobilize experts from across sectors and development areas, to work hand-in-hand by inspiring concrete investments and actions — political, programmatic, and financial — that put girls and women at the center of development, and of their national SDG implementation.  They will - hopefully - do what the campaign has done at global level, bring untraditional partners together to work towards shared goals.

Alongside the promising potential in these countries, the everyday reality of girls and women are still cause for concern.

India has the highest rate of child marriage in the world, with 47% of girls married before the age of 18.

Kenya’s maternal mortality ratio of 510 deaths per 100,000 live births, makes it the country with the 20th highest maternal mortality ratio in the world.

More than a quarter of girls and women aged 15-49 in Senegal have been subject to Female Genital Mutilation.

And girls and women in these three countries still eat least and last, are still less likely to finish secondary school, and still don’t have the same access to resources such as land, water, credit and clean energy.

Behind these facts and figures are girls and women, who, if empowered and given their rightful opportunities can turn these tides of adversity into waves of progress.

There IS reason to be optimistic. The selected countries also represent great opportunity, as their leaders have already shown interest in translating the global SDG agenda into national action.

And since the introduction of SDGs two years ago, India, Kenya and Senegal have each participated in the voluntary reviews for the High-Level Political Forum of the UN.

Now is the time to ensure additional focus and support into the emerging efforts of local advocates, women’s organizations, and civil society organizations in these countries to bring girls and women to the fore of investments and commitments in development at country level.

Joining together is critical in continuing our work to ensure that girls and women – no matter who they are, what they have or where they live - have the power and choice to define their own destinies.

Together let’s deliver for her. Deliver for all. And Deliver for Good.