WECF at CSW 58 March 2014: Implementing the MDGs for Women and Girls

Agreed conclusions drafted in strong language thanks to intense lobby of NGOs and rights campaigners

26.03.2014 |Anke Stock, WECF

The 58 session of the CSW (Commission on the Status of Women) took place at UN headquarters in New York from 10 to 21 March 2014. The priority theme was “Implementing the MDGs for Women and Girls”.

Representatives of member states, UN entities and ECOSOC accredited NGOs took part, such as WECF in cooperation with WEDO under the project EWA, funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Partners of WECFs network from the global south were also present, such as Gertrude Kenyangi from SWAGEN in Uganda and Kalyani Raj from All India Women’s Conference. The joint parallel event on climate chaos on 19 March was part of the programme under the CSW and attracted a lot of interested participants.

Fierce negotiations took place over the agreed conclusions, the outcome document on the priority theme of 2014 (MDGs). Agreed conclusions contain an analysis of the priority theme and a set of concrete recommendations for governments, intergovernmental bodies and other institutions, civil society actors and other relevant stakeholders, to be implemented at the international, national, regional and local level.

This year’s agreed conclusions are drafted in a strong language which is due to the intense lobby efforts of NGOs and other rights campaigners. Inter alia, they contain references to climate change and women (paras. 25, 24 and tt) and women’s access to natural and productive resources (such as land and water and sanitation, in paras. 28, 22, j, k, dd) and promote a stand-alone goal of gender equality within the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The document will now be used to push for a stand-alone goal and the mainstreaming of gender equality into the SDGs, which are currently being negotiated by the UN open working group. WECF as a co-facilitator of the Women Major Group is strongly involved in these negotiation processes.

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