Dans notre dernière lettre de février 2024, nous vous annoncions les grandes lignes du programme du Comité sur le Statut de la Femme de l'ONU Genève pour 2024. Il était notamment fait mention de la Conférence sur Beijing +30. Cela concernera la région Europe UNECE.
Dans les lignes qui suivent, nous vous proposons de vous en dire un peu plus, d'autant plus que BANGWE et DIALOGUE y participera activement, en particulier dans les groupes de travail sur les Droits Humains et sur la paix et les conflits.
A ce propos, veuillez trouver copie d'une note intégrale en version anglaise, telle qu'élaborée par le Comité sur le Statut de la Femme au sein de l'ONU Genève. Le souhait est que vous marquiez de l'intéret à cet important projet, pourquoi pas y participer au moment venu.
Comité ONG de la Condition de la Femme, Genève 1973-2023
50 years of advocacy for women and girls
Beijing +30 Regional Consultation UNECE
The Fourth World Conference for Women - and the last - took place in Beijing in 1995. The
outcome document called the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action listed 12 Critical Areas of Concern. Until now nowhere in the world has achieved all 12. It remains the basic document that is referred to in order to assess achievements, gaps and challenges for women and girls domestically and globally. Despite best efforts of those interested in achieving equality, in recent years there has been push-back and during the UN Commission on the Status of Women,
Trying to keep existing positive language and outcomes for women and girls around the world has become challenging, leave alone moving forward for positive policies, programmes and structures to achieve equality and justice for all people. In keeping with UN practice, there is a review every five years of significant Conventions and major agreements. As such there would usually be a conference every five years.
However such a conference would given today’s geo-politics, probably lead to a less robust outcome document and therefore no World conference for women has taken place since Beijing. Thus the five year consultations to assess progress are ever more important. These take place at the regional level - the 5 regions according to the UN. The region we live in is called Western Europe and Other States with the regional UN Commission being UNECE that includes 56 countries including Europe, Turkey, Russia, Canada and North America.
There is a disparity between our UN region, through which all UN process allot seats and votes, and the UNECE. The UNECE and UN Women for our region also include some of Eastern Europe which is a region in its own right in all UN processes. Thus the consultation for both the Eastern Europe and Western Europe and Other States regions will take place under the auspices of UNECE.
The formal Member States analysis of B+30 will take place through the 69th Commission on the Status of Women in March 2025. The Preparatory Committee for our region will take place in Geneva on 21/22 October 2024 hosted by UNECE. The result of this consultation on the achievements, gaps and challenges for our region will be shared with UN Women and will be included in the global report on the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Civil Society will hold a two day event prior to this. Civil Society engagement is vital and NGOCSWGeneva has consulted widely to find the most inclusive manner for Civil Society engagement.
We are consulting with all stakeholders to ascertain the best use of the two days that is hoped to take place within the UN Headquarters in Geneva. Your views on this would be most welcome. Thus far ideas include hearing stories of best practice from around our region; intergenerational discussions; and World Cafe. Much will depend on the venue that is confirmed for the event. Once we have received sufficient input from you all, we can create a Secretariat, NGO CSW Geneva / co WFWPI
Rue Anne Torcapel 10, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland +41 (0)21 7288812 +41 (0)79 250 3477
www.ngocsw-geneva.ch
secretariat@ngocsw-geneva.ch
c.handschin@wfwp.org
Programme that reflects the wishes of Civil Society. As yet there is no funding for this event. However we invite organisations to donate funds to provide travel and substance expenses for those unable to participate due to financial reasons to increase inclusion. Once such funds are known, there will be a transparent process to shortlist applications for such funding.
working groups for each of the critical areas of concern. These Working Groups havealready almost completed draft statements which it is hoped will be ready by the end of April.
Each group has two Co-Chairs. As each area covers a range of issues, it may be that some groups will sub-divide. For example the VAWG group will have a sub group on trafficking. There is also a Working Group drafting the Chapeau statement that will take into consideration the intersection between all themes.
The outcome for each of the groups will be a 1000word document with 3 calls to action. These documents will be presented to the Member States as the Civil Society analysis of the past 30 years and published on our website for wide dissemination. The deadline for the creation of this document is 15 September 2024. The outline draft will be ready by the end of April. The document should use existing agreed UN language.
As there are often diverse opinions in many of the areas, in addition all groups are welcome to draft additional statements with signatures of those supporting it using their desired language. These will also be published on the website for dissemination. Each Working Group is also creating a background paper to include their reasoning and evidence for the summary statement.
There is also a desire for a critical analysis of the Beijing Platform for Action as a whole and a consideration of its achievements and gaps, especially in regard to CEDAW and Agenda 2030. In order to achieve this analysis we are inviting interested individuals to offer their help in research and editing. Again the deadline for completion is 15 September 2024.
Expert Round Tables
In coordination with UNECE there will be five expert round tables with Member States on
women, peace and security; the environment; Violence against women and girls; Education and Health. Three of these will be via zoom and two in person with Ambassadors and UN personnel.
The working groups on the relevant round table will be invited to suggest civil society experts to participate and also to share their working document, with the recognition that it is a work in progress. This process is an attempt to have an ongoing conversation with Member States on the areas of concern to ensure a more in depth analysis of the issue than that which can take place in a 2 day event.
Analysing achievements, gaps and challenges
In order to ensure full participation, all interested civil society are invited to participate in online
