The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), part of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), promotes gender equality and the advancement of women. Its charge is to measure progress towards equality and highlight challenges, set standards and formulate concrete policies to promote equality and women’s empowerment, and encourage mainstreaming of the gender perspective in all UN activities worldwide.
FAWCO is a member of the NGO Committees on the Status of Women (NGO CSWs) in NY, Geneva and Vienna. FAWCO members and UN Representatives regularly attend the annual CSW in New York. You can read blogs by members of FAWCO's delegations to CSW.
FAWCO signs on to Written and Oral Statements submitted to UN Women for consideration by CSW, joining our partner women's NGOs with consultative status to ECOSOC. You can read these statements on the Advocacy page.
| Key Links | |
| UN CSW | http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw |
| NGO CSW New York | www.ngocsw.org |
| NGO CSW Geneva | www.ngocsw-geneva.ch/ |
| NGO CSW Vienna | https://ngocswvienna.org/ |
I had the honor of listening to the work of four different organizations on how they are not only empowering females, but also males.
Nayana Chowdhury (Breakthrough India), Shrinivas Rao (Azad Foundation), Samitha Sugathimala (Foundation for Innovative Social Development and MenEngage Alliance), Wessel van den Berg PhD (Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice), and...
“...[C]an’t even go outside to walk for exercise by themselves.” “Stoned to death for a ‘mistake’ they (the Taliban) thought was egregious.”
Yesterday I had the honor of meeting Shahla Farid, a former professor at the University of Kabul, and her two daughters. We didn’t have time for Ms. Farid to tell me much about her life.
Posted by Amanda Lane: “Attending #CSW68 with Ruba Hattar, MSc. was an excellent experience that has us thinking of more ways Collateral Repair Project can support women this year. Namely, increasing daycare for parents in our community is becoming a top priority for us as a result...
This year was the largest CSW ever, and it is now the largest women’s international conference by far and the second largest gathering of people at the UN next to the annual UN General Assembly. This year two heads of state, three vice presidents, over 100 ministers and 4,800 representatives of...
May Sabe Phyu of the Women’s Advocacy Coalition Myanmar (WAC-M) was staffing a table in the hall of the Armenian Church Center (site of the CSW68 parallel events). She was alone, and it gave us the opportunity to speak about the situation on the ground in Myanmar and for me to learn some facts about...
Ambassador Gilad Erdan, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, reminded us that this event, hosted by Israel, was the first time since October 7, 2023 that any meeting was held at the United Nations regarding the hostages taken by Hamas. Sexual violence against Israeli women during the October 7 attack and additional reporting that make...
Factoid: One striking fact for me personally was that women are 18% less likely than men to have loans approved, facing rejection due to gender bias. I’m often surprised by how even seemingly minor details can reveal underlying inequality.
As a lifelong Texan and then young immigrant in Russia, I have experienced dismissive attitudes towards feminism and women’s issues. Even the simple discussion of these topics tended to be rejected as hysterical propaganda. I was obviously aware, to some extent, of misogyny...
From March 11–14, 2024 I attended my first Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) at the UN in New York City. I attended 14 sessions in total, which I have listed below. Some were held in small-to-medium-sized conference rooms with a few dozen participants; others were held in the main UN General Assembly Hall with...