On 19 March 2026, Mrs. Kanchana Patarachoke, Ambassador of Thailand to the EU, participated in the event “Team Europe for Gender-Responsive Global Gateway: Advancing Women’s Economic Empowerment through Gender-Lens Investing and Gender-Responsive Supply Chains”, co-hosted by UN Women, the Cyprus Presidency, and Enabel. The conference brought together Team Europe actors including development agencies of the EU member states, international organisations, private sector, civil society, and financial institutions to explore how to better integrate gender equality into Global Gateway investments. Building on the forthcoming GAP IV, discussions highlighted practical approaches such as sustainable finance, gender-lens investing, and gender-responsive procurement and supply chains.

 

The Ambassador put forward three key recommendations. First, Global Gateway should broaden its scope beyond “hard” sectors (energy, transport, digital) to also include “soft” sectors such as education, health, and disaster risk reduction. Second, a gender lens should be systematically integrated across all projects. Third, the approach should be more demand-driven and context-specific, and making better use of tools such as country gender profiles and gender action plans to guide project design and strengthen capacity in partner countries.

 

The event featured keynote addresses by Ms. Josie Christodoulou, Commissioner for Gender Equality of Cyprus; Ms. Florence Raes, Director of the UN Women, Brussels Office; Ms. Evelien Masschelein, Director of Expertise & Think at Enabel; and Ms. Brigitte Luggin, Director of Gender Equality and Anti-Discrimination at the European External Action Service.

 

The programme also included two interactive panels on sustainable finance and gender-lens investing, as well as on gender-responsive procurement and supply chains.