Publish Date: Mar 02, 2020

STATEMENT Monday, March 2, 2020



Statement from Daniel Seymour (Director Strategic Partnerships Division)

regarding the postponement of the Unstereotype Alliance 2020 Member Summit

 


Due to safety concerns and travel restrictions surrounding the coronavirus situation, we have decided to postpone this year’s Unstereotype Alliance Member Summit until further notice.

 

You will appreciate that the United Nations, both through its global leads including the World Health Organisation, and as the world’s intergovernmental organisation, is seized of the COVID-19 situation.  One aspect of our responsibility is to make sure nothing we do risks exacerbating the spread of the virus.  In line with this, the UN has recommended the scaling down of meetings convened at the UN Secretariat.

As the host of the Unstereotype Alliance, UN Women will act in accordance with the guidance applied by the UN, and we are applying the same measures taken by the Commission on the Status of Women.

While the United Nation’s recommendation has been to ask participants not to travel from overseas, many of our speakers and guests within the US have advised their own company’s travel restrictions prevent them from attending the Summit.

 

With so many key people missing this would no longer be the event we intended. As the Unstereotype Alliance, we have a commitment and an obligation to our members to convene inspirational events that provide an opportunity for collaboration and sharing across our global network. The absence of our international members and a large number of our speakers makes the Summit as a whole fall short of delivering on that promise.  Therefore, rather than compromise with a sub-optimal Summit, the difficult decision has been made to postpone the event at this time, until travel restrictions have been lifted.

 

Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to an event in the future that truly brings us together to share, collaborate and unite on our collective objectives for progress.

 

For further information please contact the Head of the Unstereotype Alliance Secretariat

sara.denby@unwomen.org or unstereotypealliance@unwomen.org