GENERATION EQUALITY FORUM: CONCLUSIONS OF THE 66TH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), whose secretariat is provided by UN Women, is dedicated exclusively to the promotion of women’s rights. Every year since 1946, ministers, government and civil society representatives attend an annual session held in New York at the United Nations headquarters. Find out more about this annual conference.

This year, the 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66), which took place from March 14 to 25, 2022, had as its priority theme: "Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes".

The Generation Equality Forum in the spotlight during CSW66

This 66th session, which opened almost a year after the first segment of the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) hosted by Mexico from March 29 to 30, 2021, provided an opportunity to take stock of the commitments made during this event of major importance for women’s rights worldwide and to consider the follow-up to be given.

Appointed in September 2021, the new Executive Director of UN Women, Ms. Sima Bahous, reaffirmed her commitment to the Generation Equality Forum, highlighting three priorities:

• Accountability for the commitments made by GEF stakeholders (1007 " commitment makers" and 95 "Action Coalition champions", including 24 governments) and UN Women’s support for their implementation
• Continued mobilization for the announcement of new commitments
• Promotion of the multi-stakeholder and intergenerational approach of the GEF, which is seen as an "example of inclusive multilateralism"

UN Women unveiled the Commitment dashboard, an online tool that lists the 2,000 commitments made during the GEF for each "Action Coalition", as well as those to come.

A second dashboard is dedicated exclusively to the Women, Peace and Security Compact.

A monitoring and accountability framework, currently being finalized, will serve as the basis for annual accountability reports for the next five years. A first report should be released during the 77th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2022.

Key milestones and next steps in the follow-up to the Generation Equality Forum

The UN member states adopt a joint document, known as the "Agreed Conclusions", every year, negotiated during the CSW.

For the first time at the CSW, the agreed conclusions adopted this year recognize the link between climate change and gender equality, and call on governments to take measures to strengthen the role of women and girls in addressing climate change, environmental protection and disaster risk reduction, by :

• Strengthening legislative, legal and regulatory frameworks
• Integrating gender into climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programs
• Expanding gender-responsive financing
• Improving statistics and sex-disaggregated data
• Promoting a just and gender-sensitive transition

A resolution was also adopted regarding the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, inviting the UN Economic and Social Council to conduct an evaluation of the implementation of the Declaration for the CSW69 to be held in 2025. Member States were also expected to do the same at the national and regional level in order to assess progress and setbacks in women’s rights.