Tarja Halonen gives 2013 Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture
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Women’s participation in the sustainable world is the subject when Tarja Halonen, Finland’s president 2000–2012, gives this year’s Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture in the Grand Auditorium, 6 May.
Time and place: 6 May at 16.30, The University Main Building, the Grand Auditorium.
The lecture is open to the public and will be followed by a Q&A session, and a performance by choir Allmänna Sången.
As part of a speech at the UN General Assembley 2009 in New York, Tarja Halonen said:
“Gender, food production and climate change are all interlinked. We know that 70 percent of the world’s poor are women and girls. We also know that the majority of agricultural labourers are women. If we really want to combat climate change and avoid a global food crisis, we need to pay close attention to the role of women, especially in the least developed countries.”
Tarja Halonen is known for her commitment to poverty eradication, sustainability and human rights. To these ends she has served in various capacities. She served as the co-chair of ILO’s World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, co-chair of the Panel of Eminent Persons of UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) and co-chair of the UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability. Currently she is co-chair of the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development.
Prior to her presidency Tarja Halonen served as a member of parliament for 21 years. During her political career, Halonen was appointed to several ministries and served as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister of Justice and Minister of Social Affairs. Early in her career, she worked as a trade unionist and was a lawyer with the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions between the years 1970 and 1979.
The Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture is given in memory of Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, and in recognition of the values that inspired him as Secretary-General and generally in his life – compassion, humanism and commitment to international solidarity and cooperation. The Annual Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture is co-organised by Uppsala University and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.
The lecture will be recorded and posted online at the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation’s website.