UN session on Status of Women ends

The 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women has ended at the (UN) headquarters with a commitment by the commission to play a key role in ensuring the 2030 ‘Expiry Date’ for Gender Inequality was achieved.

The session adopted the 2030 “expiry date” for gender inequality across the world in a political declaration last week at its opening session.

Ghana was represented at the session by a high-level delegation led by the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur. The others were some government officials, representatives of civil Society organisations, women’s groups and the media.

Political declaration

In her closing statement, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women ), Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, said  “based on the road we have travelled and the challenges ahead of us, we know that we must still work systematically and relentlessly to bring about transformation in our families, societies, economies and political and public spaces.”

The declaration reaffirmed the landmark 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action  and called for the strengthening of the involvement of civil society in the commission’s work.

It also included ministers’ pledges to take a number of concrete steps, such as strengthening the implementation of laws, policies and strategies and increasing support for institutional mechanisms. The rest were eliminating discriminatory norms and stereotypes and significantly raising investments for gender equality to close resource gaps.  

Those efforts, Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka stated, must represent “a building block” to ending gender inequality as the new sustainable development goals were implemented.

Commitment reaffirmed

Reflecting on the two-week session, Commission Chair Kandra Vajarabhaya said by adopting the political declaration, the commission had reaffirmed its commitment to accelerating the pace of achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well as the realisation of the human rights of women and girls.  

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She also highlighted the shared experiences of progress on the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action as well as the remaining challenges.  

In addition, she said the session had also been remarkable in its action to strengthen the commission’s future working methods, which ensured that it would have an important role to play in the follow-up to the post-2015 development agenda.

Draft resolution

The Commission approved a draft resolution on the future organisation and methods of work of the Commission on the Status of Women, which, among other things, proposed that the  commission’s annual session would include a ministerial segment to reaffirm and strengthen political commitment for the realisation of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, as well as their human rights.

In other matters, the commission approved two draft resolutions on the organisation of the 59th session and on the provisional agenda and documentation for the 60th session.