The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) kicks off its annual two-week session at United Nations Headquarters in New York this morning to discuss progress and gaps in gender equality and the empowerment of women.
UN Member States, civil society organizations and UN entities will gather to deliberate the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This year’s session marks the 20th anniversary of that historic meeting which spearheaded a key global policy document – unanimously adopted by 189 countries at that conference – on critical areas such as women and poverty, violence against women and the human rights of women.
For the next two weeks, CSW participants will also discuss women and girls’ access to education, training, science and technology, as well as women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Presidents of the General Assembly, Security Council Vice, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and several members of civil society are expected to deliver opening remarks this morning. The keynote address will be delivered by Patricia Licuanan, Chair of the Commission on Higher Education of the Philippines.
Action on a draft text on the Political declaration on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women is expected as well.
The outcomes and recommendations of each CSW session are forwarded to ECOSOC for follow-up. In 1996, ECOSOC in resolution 1996/6 expanded the Commission’s mandate and decided that it should take a leading role in monitoring and reviewing progress and problems in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and in mainstreaming a gender perspective in UN activities.
The CSW is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. A functional commission of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), it was established by Council resolution 11(II) of 21 June 1946.