CSW65 (2021)

From 15 to 26 March 2021, Geraldine Rmi, Sophya Rmi, Beverlyn Lay from the Delegation of South Asia and Vivian Rmi from the Province of Africa participated in the sixth-fifth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) with the theme “Women’s full and effection and decision making in publiclife, as well as the elimination of violence for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.

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) established on the 21st of June, 1946.

Due to the COVID 19 situation, the proceedings were held online apart from the opening and closing events of which few delegates in New York attended taking into account latest guidelines from the UN Secretary General and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Representatives of member States, UN entities and ECOSOC participated. We as a Non – Governmental Organization with the name FONDAZIONE PROCLADE INTERNAZIONALE-ONLUS, are under the umbrella of ECOSOC.

Apart from the theme already highlighted, this year’s session reviewed the Beijing Declaration and platform of 1995, to examine to what extent this document has been implemented as well as evaluate its progress and constraints. It also evaluated the progress in the implementation of the agreed conclusions from the sixieth session (2016), as well as came up with strong action- oriented policy recommendations to ensure that we build back better towards a future that is more, resilient and sustainable.

At the first meeting, the session was called to order by the Chair of the event in person of His Excellency, Ambassador Mher Margaryan. Elections of officers were conducted, adoption of the agenda and other organizational matters took place.

The Secretary General (SG) addressed the commission. He rightly stated that “COVID 19 is a crisis with a woman’s face” this is obviously due to its overwhelmingly effect on women.

Women make up for 70% of the world’s health care workforce and occupy most of the jobs in the economic sector that have been hit hardest by the Pandemic.

Several meetings and conferences were organized by the commission herself, NGOs, governments of nations, civil society groups, religious groups etc. which can be summarized in 5 parts:

1. Statistics of women in public life and the situation of women today.

2. Challenges encountered in achieving gender-parity

3. Efforts of Countries, NGOs and other groups to curb gender base violence and achieve gender equality

4. How we can achieve gender parity by 2030

5. Agreed conclusions.

Generally speaking, I would say that everyone seem to be of the opinion that:

– Women’s participation in decision making at all levels foster democracy

– More women give rise to better nation

– We need to transform the way the world view women

For more on the Agreed Conclusions kindly visit : www.un.org

Vivian Anyanwu, RMI