Commission on the Status of Women
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.
By Paula Daeppen (AWC Zürich)
The Beijing Platform for Action recognized the essential role of women in the development of sustainable and ecologically sound consumption and production patterns and in approaches to natural resource management, but in 1995, the urgent awareness of the devastating effects of climate change were not as evident as they are today. Today women are among the...
By Georgia Kallis (AWO Greece)
A quarter of a century after Beijing, 47 Government delegations, 867 participants, and representatives from 81 Civil Society Organizations gathered at the U.N. in Geneva for the Beijing +25 ECE Regional Review. National reports showed that although some progress has been made by some of the EU Member States on gender equality in the domains...
An enlightening session was the summary of the 51 Beijing+25 national reports in a regional synthesis, presented by Monika Linn, Sustainable Development and Gender Unit, ECE. Sadly, she reported little that was new, but the same issues we discussed five years ago at the Beijing+20 Review:
- increasing violence against women, including cyber violence
- need for greater economic empowerment and political participation

This was a lively panel, and the level of interest and energy in the room was high. Government delegates and members of civil society addressed the serious need for great representation of women in policy and decision making, calling for more effective participation, collaboration, networking and partnering. Women's political engagement brings idea leadership as we share knowledge and policy solutions...