ECOSOC 2004 Coordination Segment
01-07 July 2004

The Coordination Segment (1 to 7 July (morning) will be devoted to two themes this year: (i) Coordinated and integrated United Nations system approach to promote rural development in developing countries, with due consideration to least developed countries, for poverty eradication and sustainable development ECOSOC Decision 2003/287. (ii) Review and appraisal of the system-wide implementation of the Council’s agreed conclusions 1997/2 on mainstreaming the gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system.

The theme of rural development will enable continuation of the discussion held at last year’s high-level segment. It will be the occasion for ECOSOC to review how far the UN system has gone to promote an integrated approach to rural development. The segment will place special focus on LDCs. As a second theme, the Council will review the implementation of the agreed conclusions it adopted in 1997 on “gender mainstreaming”. In those agreed conclusions, the Council defined gender mainstreaming as the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies and programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and society spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The Coordination Segment will assess how to expedite implementation of 1997 agreed conclusions and explore ways and means to align the framework with the outcomes of other conferences held since 1997, including the Millennium Summit.

During the Coordination Segment, several panel discussions and roundtables will be held to explore these two themes.