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/ |
Walking into the room I could feel the familiar buzz of Girl Scout energy. Youthful, curious, vibrant, get-stuff-done.
I felt right at home in the “Empowering Women through Non-Formal Education: Developing Leadership and Decision-Making Skills” session at CSW69 facilitated by Girl Scouts of...
Extremism has been rearing its ugly head for quite some time now. It seems like it’s everywhere, all the time. That’s because it is. It’s threatening a wide range of rights and
It’s. Not. Slowing. Down.
The panelists of this CSW69 session...
That is what I overheard outside the entrance to the UN buildings in New York City on my first day of attending CSW69 in March 2025. It was said half-jokingly by a middle-aged man who worked at the UN to his...
My initial reaction walking into the United Nations building on Day 1 of CSW69 was pure shock, excitement and joy. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it: thousands of women from around the world gathered in one place to have their voices heard, to advocate for meaningful, global change. Coming...
Two official side events during the first two days CSW69 presented an insightful picture of the fluid gender situation in Europe, from the Nordic countries with their enviable track record of gender equality to the countries of Eastern Europe and the Balkans that...
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) session takes place annually at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The 69th session took place March 10 to 21, 2025. Twenty-four FAWCO delegates participated. This session marked the 30th anniversary of the 1995 World Conference on Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for...
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.