Mr. Benjamin Perks said that Montenegro was one of 75 countries in the world whose citizens were to influence the creation of The World We Want after 2015 and that the meeting of today, as well as the current consultations with the citizens on the priorities for development of the country in the period after 2015, represented a chance for Montenegro to put gender equality and prevention of violence against women at the top of its development agenda. He pointed out that the violence against women was the most common form of inequality, and he emphasised that gender equality and empowerment of women was of key significance for acceleration of EU accession process of Montenegro.

In her opening statement, the Chairwoman-in-Office Ms. Branka Tanasijević, MA, a member of the Gender Equality Committee, said that the Millennium Development Goals were defined in 2000, with the aim to have them met by 2015, and that the UN System in Montenegro started the national consultation on development priorities after 2015, within the global campaign The World We Want 2015. Starting from the fact that Montenegro is one of 75 countries that the United Nations System included in the implementation of the national consultations so far, she emphasised that the consultations in Montenegro are being carried out in cooperation with numerous partners, and everything with the aim to have the citizens express their concerns and priorities and give suggestions for resolving the issues they recognised. On that occasion, as she emphasised, the Defacto Agency, hired by the UNDP, conducted a representative survey, singling out the priority areas for Montenegro, and, among other things, the topic Equality.