A five-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+5)

Five years after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the UN General Assembly held its 23rd Special Session, on gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century, in order to review progress made in implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted unanimously at the landmark Beijing Conference in 1995.

Despite much progress, responses from Member States indicated that much more work needed to be done with regard to implementation of the Platform for Action. Two major areas - violence and poverty - continued to be major obstacles to gender equality worldwide. Globalization had added new dimensions to both areas, creating new challenges for the implementation of the Platform, such as trafficking in women and girls, changing nature of armed conflict, growing gap between nations and genders, the detachment of macroeconomic policy from social protection concerns.

Overall, the analysis of the national reports on the implementation of the Platform for Action revealed there had been no major breakthrough with regard to equal sharing of decision making in political structures at national and international levels. In most countries of the world, representation of women remained low. Even in countries where a "critical mass" in decision-making positions within the public sector has been achieved, there are few women on boards of directors of major business corporations. There was a need for more careful monitoring of progress in ensuring women's equal participation in these positions of economic power.

The Special Session resulted in a political declaration. It also adopted further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which included:

• Actions and initiatives to overcome obstacles and to achieve the full and accelerated implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action;

• Actions to be taken at the national level by Governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and other actors of civil society;

• Actions to be taken at the international level by the United Nations system and international and regional organizations;

• Actions to be taken at the national and international levels by Governments, regional and international organizations, including the United Nations system, and international financial institutions and other actors,