Your Excellencies, honourable Minister for Development Corporation, UN Representatives, Young Leaders, partners, colleagues, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

I have fond memories of my earlier visit to Kenya and I’m pleased to be back and to have the honour of speaking in my role as an Influencer for Deliver for Good on this special day marking the launch of the Kenyan campaign.

I sense a strong determination in the room, as I look around and see all of you, who have chosen to support the launch by your presence and thereby join in the power of partnerships and collaboration to elevate the voices of girls and women and drive progress to the benefit of us all…. Each and every one of us, with each our own unique potential, can contribute and Deliver for Good for girls and women – in Kenya – and around the world!

The Global Deliver for Good Campaign was initiated during the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen in 2016. And I have seen it develop and grow. In the words of Katja – the advocacy and communication campaign applies a gender lens to the Sustainable Development Goals and promotes specific investments which evidence shows will have a positive impact.

A positive impact not just for the individual girl or woman, but for all around her.

And throughout this journey, the strong pulse of this Global campaign – it’s mission to ‘change-the-game’ for girls and women, the world’s greatest untapped resource - has been intense and extremely convincing.

Why? Well, the answer is simple: “Because ‘changing-the-game’ for girls and women really means ‘changing-the-game’ for everyone to the benefit of us all – for good.

And because strong and ever-growing banks of evidence back this clear message – that it is not only the right thing to do, it also pays for families, for communities and for countries to invest in  and prioritize girls and women.

If we were to fully close gender gaps in workplaces, we would add up $28 trillion in annual GDP by 2025. That is just one number that clearly backs this message.

And after this compelling one number – I have to add just one parenthesis:

Recently, a UNWOMEN report showed that only 23 percent of the available data for monitoring gender across the SDGs is from 2010 or later – that is to say, that we only have a small part of the larger picture, available to us, to work with. So, we need more important data to complete the picture - and I commend your efforts also in this respect! 

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

Since the Global Campaign launched, it has helped partnerships to develop between organizations that may not have thought it obvious to work together before. The campaign is achieving what it set out to do; to unify around common goals.

And your beautiful country, Kenya represents an immense potential when it comes to taking leadership and action in a joint effort for gender equality in this, the new sustainable development era.

In my view, all of you present here together represent the type of potential coalition, which can bring about real and sustainable change in the lives of girls and women and thereby men and boys.

With today’s launch begins an exciting new phase of work - taking the campaign to the next level.

I have learned, how you have mobilized experts from across sectors and development areas, to work hand-in-hand by inspiring concrete investments and actions. Actions that put girls and women at the centre of development, and at the heart of the implementation of the Sustainable development goals. Setting you up to do, what the campaign is doing at a global level, bringing untraditional partners together to work towards shared goals.

Collaboration - joining together and working as one - 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.

So I urge everyone today and tomorrow to think; what can I do? How can I be the change I wish to see? How can I join hands with my neighbour or the unknown person next to me – in the joint effort to achieve meaningful change for girls and women …..to the benefit of us all.

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

Thank you.