21 January 2016: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has released a series of reports and documents ahead of the 60th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 60). The report on ‘Women’s Empowerment and the Links to Sustainable Development’ argues that gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will contribute to leaving no one behind, and to the accelerated implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

CSW 60, which will convene at UN Headquarters in New York, US, from 14-24 March 2016, will be organized around the theme ‘Women’s empowerment and its link to sustainable development.’ It will also review the agreed conclusions from CSW 57 on ‘the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.’

The report on ‘Women’s Empowerment and the Links to Sustainable Development’ identifies key considerations for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in tandem with the BPfA (the outcome document of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women) to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment. The report notes that CSW 60 is shaped by the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and BPfA, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) and the 2030 Agenda. It calls for improved policy coordination and gender mainstreaming across all sectors and ministries, and for solid, disaggregated data at the country level.

On gender equality and women’s empowerment, it proposes that CSW 60 call on governments and other stakeholders to: strengthen normative, legal and policy frameworks; enhance national institutional arrangements; ensure enabling environments for financing; and strengthen women’s leadership and support women’s civil society organizations. It also calls for fostering gender-responsive data collection, follow-up and review, and accountability processes.

Among the other reports made available in advance of the CSW 60, ‘Women, the Girl Child and HIV and AIDS’ states that the updated UN AIDS strategy for the period 2016-2021: is “fully aligned” with the 2030 Agenda; prioritizes achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls; and includes a target on ensuring that “women and girls live a life free of gender inequalities and gender-based violence to mitigate risk and the impact of HIV.” Along with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health 2016-2030, the UN AIDS strategy provides important guidelines for achieving the 2030 Agenda, the report says.

The report on ‘Proposals for Priority Themes for Future Sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women’ notes that a 2015 resolution of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (2015/6) affirmed that the CSW will contribute to the follow-up of the 2030 Agenda so as to accelerate the realization of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The report notes that CSW 60 may wish to adopt a multi-year programme of work for the years 2017-2019, and makes proposals for priority themes for these years: ‘Gender equality and the empowerment of women in the changing world of work’ (2017); ‘Gender- responsive social protection systems to achieve substantive equality for women and girls’ (2018); and ‘Sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls’ (2019).

In preparation for CSW 60, UN Women convened a Multi-Stakeholder Forum on ‘Implementing the 2030 Agenda to Accelerate Realization of Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls,’ on 21 January 2016, and an expert group meeting (EGM) on ‘Women’s empowerment and its link to sustainable development,’ from 2-4 November 2015. [CSW 60 Website] [CSW 60 Documents] [Publication: Women’s empowerment and the links to sustainable development: Report of the Secretary-General] [Multi-Stakeholder Forum] [EGM]