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9-12 May: "The Realization of Peace in Women's Hands:Meeting the Challenge." The Eighth Annual Women's Conference on the Middle East. Palais des Nations, Rm. 12, Geneva.

3 May 2004 General Meeting (download the Preliminary Agenda, Word Format)

8 December 2003 : Round Table "Les Droits Humains des Femmes dans la Société de l'Information et le Fossé Numérique" organised by Femmes Afrique Solidarité and Association Tunisienne des Meres. Translation provided in French, English, and Spanish.

29 September 2003 : General Meeting - download the Provisional Agenda

28th July-15th August 2003 : GENDER / WOMEN'S CAUCUS for INFORMATION SHARING AND STRATEGISING (during the 55th Session on the Sub-Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights) - DATES: Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday - TIME: 09.00 - 10.00 - PLACE: Meeting Room XXIII (23), Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland


21 - 22 July 2003 : NGO Committee on the Status of Women Forum during the ECOSOC - PALAIS DES NATIONS ROOM XVI, Geneva, Switzerland.

10 - 11 July 2003 : To mark its 30 years of international advocacy in partnership with the UN, the NGOCSW is organizing a 2-day parallel Forum to ECOSOC’s Coordination segment on 10-11 July, to bring together NGOs, governments, UN agencies, funding, programmes and research bodies.

22 April 2003 : During the 59th Commission on Human Rights, the NGO CSW one-hour briefing which focussed on the status of women in the light of religions and traditions, building on the challenges of the study on that subject by M. Abdelfattah Amor, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief.

Dear All,

Please find below an update of the provisional agenda. We cannot finalize until we receive all the responses to our invitations to speakers.

As to the registration form, this has been modified to include the workshops - please indicate which workshop you wish to participate in. This will enable the organizers to have an approximate number and able to allocate the meeting rooms accordingly. So far we have only the NGO Lounge and XVI. I have made a request to the Gender Bureau of the ILO
and asked Danielle Bridel for CICG. The Liaison Office of NGOs has not been able to get an extra room so far. Do please submit your forms as early as possible.

Thank you for your interest and solidarity in making this 30th anniversary a successful one for the advancement of women and gender equality.

Yours in solidarity,

Conchita

Download the Draft Programme

Download the Registration Form

Download the Aide-Memoire

Invitation Letter to Governments

Dear Friends,

The Geneva-based Committee on the Status of Women of the Conference of NGOs, which is a coalition of over 65 international NGOs with millions of membership worldwide, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It was created in 1973 to prepare for the First World Conference on Women and has become a strategic body for international advocacy
towards the promotion of women’s rights to sustainable development, gender equality and their empowerment.

The NGOCSW has been a significant contributor to the First World Conference of Women and to the succeeding Women’s world conferences, It helped draft the Programmes and Platforms for Actions and the Vienna Declaration on Violence Against Women in 1994. It has also been an important partner of the Office of the High commissioner in integrating gender equality and women’s rights in the UN system. Through national affiliates of its member organizations, it has also been working very closely with local and national governments to advance the status of women and the girlchild in economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights.

In 1996 NGOCSW organized a meeting of UN agencies and programmes to follow up a year later strategies for implementation of Beijing PFA. To mark its 30 years of international advocacy in partnership with the UN, the NGOCSW is organizing a 2-day parallel Forum to ECOSOC’s Coordination segment on 10-11 July, to bring together NGOs, governments, UN agencies, funding, programmes and research bodies.

The NGOCSW is pleased to invite you to the Forum. The objective of the Forum is to assess how the UN, governments, NGOs and civil society have been implementing Beijing and the Millennium Development Goals. Attached is an Aide Memoire for further details The results of this Forum will contribute to the UN Commission on the Status of Women Beijing + 10 review at its regular session in 2005 and to serve as a sounding board for the advisability of an eventual fifth global conference or summit.

The programme is still being finalised but will send it to you soonest. We look very much forward to your participation.

Yours sincerely,
Conchita Poncini
NGOCSW President

Download the AIDE MEMOIRE

The Geneva based NGO Committee on the Status of Women and the NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief sponsored a one-hour briefing which focussed on the status of women in the light of religions and traditions, building on the challenges of the study on that subject by M. Abdelfattah Amor, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief. Aide-mémoire of the Gender Caucus.

59th Session of the Commission on Human Rights

Geneva, April 22 , 2003

GENDER/WOMEN'S CAUCUS - Mara Bustelo, gender coordinator of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was our guest - gave us an overview of technical cooperation for human rights: assistance to governments and other partners on regonal strategies; support on ratification of treaties in particular in the Asian Region.. Focus of tech. coop is on the 6 core treaties - covenants on civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights, convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, convention on all forms of discrimination against women, convention against torture, convention on the rights of the child and the latest one is on the convention on migrant workers and their families which comes into force as from July. Technical assistance is also on legal reforms including drafting constitutions or constitutional reforms. Largest TA is on training for law enforcement personnel but due to limited resources, this is
more training of individual trainers.

On Gender, Over the last 2-3 years, the Office is devleoping more on procedures to incorporate gender perspectives and over the last year to review strategies to
see if there is a gender perspective. Since women's rights are dealt with in New York by the Division for the Advancement of Women and in Geneva at the Office of the High Commisisoner, common technical assistance projects are carried out such as on thematic issues, for example the organization of judicial colloquia especially for senior judges, who are more interested in seeing what others are doing and how these would be useful to each other. The gender coordinators are also looking at how to involve more women as well as gender-sensitive men in projects. Mara gave an illustration of the Afghan situation where TA is being expanded to other areas of Afghanistan on human rights educatrion; support programmes to Truth and Reconciliation Commission and making sure there are women
who could help in mitigating stigma and placing vicitms in appropriate institutions (unfortunately women are sometimes placed in detention for their own protection
wqhich is not the appropriate institution for rehabilitation purposes

As regards voiluntary funding, these are usually earmarked contributions and theOHCHR has requested donors not to earmark otherwise certain projects cannot be carried out, such as for example this year there are no resources

Last but more importantly, Mara indicated that the Security Council Resolution 1325 has been a booster in helping to place women on the agenda on armed conflict situations. She said that the work of NGOs such as the Gender/Women Caucus is very useful as catalysts of change

13:00 - 14:00 CONGO BRIEFING on the UN Secretary-General's initiative to appoint a high level panel to analyse and advance UN-Civil society Relationships. The President of CONGO Renate Bloem, Cyril Ritchie and John Taylor introduced the subject. Renate said that the CONGO Board decided to have its own shadow panel to help in the process. Some comments from the floor included the following: how to be effective without being exclusive: need to include work of grassroots; not to confine action to Geneva, NY and Vienna only but should include regional Committees; to emphasize that NGOs have
Charter-based consultative relationship with the UN under Art. 71 and should not be confused with other civil society such as academics and the private sector; look at models of best practices as was done by the office of the Asst. Sec. Gen. Ms. Gillian Sorenson. Maria Francisca Ize-Charrin underscored the importance of involving the OHCHR Secretariat in the process since it is the body that provides statistics and an historical context.

NGO MEETING WITH THE CHAIR AND EXPANDED BUREAU OF THE 59TH COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

The Chair announced that the interactive dialogue with NGOs will continue and she had foreseen 2 intersessional meetings to take place: first during the Substantive Session of ECOSOC in end June-July and the second during the Sub-Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in August. Discussions will include the pending paragraphs with regard to the work of the Commission.

Statistics will be provided by the Secretariat to help in the evalauation process.

Some comments from the floor included:

1. Integrating work of the Commission on Human Rights and initiatives following the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

2. Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals are interlinked and in fact by fulfilling the Beijing PFA the targets and benchmarkets in the MDGs would be met.

3. Review the system of rights of reply to avoid that these be used as platforms for making statements by governments ather than genuine rights of reply to specific statements from other governments and NGOs. ne member of the Expanded Bureau said they are looking at whether the R of R could be made all at the end session instead of at the end of each agenda item.

4. A suggestion from the Secretariat was to have NGOs analyse the statements to provided a statistical graph on priority themes. Conchita felt this was feasible if there is a body with financial resources that could do it and if NGO statements were systematically compiled and complete set is available for analysis. On the other hand this was not the role of NGOs, according to two interventions but of the Secretariat. (Maria Francisca said
this was a rather delicate role which the Secretariat cannot assume).

5. The African Caucus announced that it will have an evlauation meeting on Sunday; the NGO Committee on the Status of Women also announced that the Gender/Women caucus will also have an evaluation session on Friday morning, the last day of the Commission and encouraged men to participate and give their inputs.

PLENARY SESSION OF THE COMMISSION: CONSIDERATION OF DRAFT RESOLUTIONS

Consideration of draft resolution on Irag was deferred to a later date.

Item 10 - Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

L.15 Rev. 1 Human Rights and unilateral coercive measures. adopted with 38 yes, 14 no and 2 abstention;

L.19. Toxic Products -adopted with 38 yes; 13 no; 2 abstentions

L.21. Study of special problems of developing countries: Optional Protocol and Open-ended Working Group - adopted without a vote (Canada did not think that individual complaint mechanisms is most appropriate)

L..22 Right to Education - adopted without a vote

L.23 Effects of structural Adjustment Policies and Foreign Debt - adopted by 29 yes; 14 no; and 10 abstentions

L.24 Women's equal ownership, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate Housing. - Adopted without a voteWhile the U.S. delegation strongly supported the resolution, it nevertheless proposed an amendment to delete the phrase "the right to" adequate housing, which was rejected with 36 no, 3 yes and 14 abstention. The Resolution was subsequently adopted without a vote. This is a milestone as it opens the way to the inclusion of the world "right" in the Housing Resolution.

L.25 Globalization and its impact on the full enjoyment of human rights. Japan strongly opposed saying that there are endless positive advantages to outweigh the negative implications; EU was also against the resolution - both felt this should be treated in other more competent fora. Adopted by a vote of 38 in favour; 15 against and 0 abstention.

L.26 Human Rights and extreme poverty. Resolution was adopted without a vote and there were over 72 co-sponsors.

L..27 - Right to Food. Adopted with 51 in favour, 1 against (U.S.) and 1 abstention (Australia). the U.S. said they were the largest food donor in the world but could not accept the resolution and reprimanded the Special Rapporteur for engaging in using language that has generated polimiques and was not within his mandate. Canada was opposed to the use of the words "Right to water" as this could open debates on the provision of water through international cooperation.

L.28 Promotion of the enjoyment of the cultural rights of everyone and respect for different cultural identities. Adopted without a voteThe resolution was introduced by Cuba. Surprisingly, U.S. joined in the consensus saying it fully endorses preservation of cultural diversities as it in fact spends millions of dollars for cultural diversity projects. The resolution calls on possibility for an appointment of a special rapporteur

L.30 /REv. 1 Adequate Housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. Germany introduced the resolution and the US. said it would join the consensus as the flexible approach on progressive realizhation was a right approach wsith regard to housing, i.e. states are not directly providing entitlement but to bring realization. - not one size fits all. Resolution was adopted without a vote.

L.20 Amendment to Sub-Commission draft decision 3 on Social Forum. In favour 36, against 1; abstention 16. Holding the Social Forum for 2 days outside the scheduled session of the Sub-Commisison. Total financial implication os $164,000 per year. Still to be adopted by ECOSOC. Pro memoire - Last year this forum was delayed due to indecision by ECOSOC until the last minute.

L.32 Right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. 39 in favour; 1 against and 13 abstentions. (Note: Nothing on women's health rights nor gender perspectivel).EU abstained because resolution lacked language and too much emphasis on violence prevention which was already in other resolutions.

L.33 - Access to medication in the context of pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Adopted without a vote. (no gender perspective nor specific reference to women except to reproductive health).

Item 6 on Racisim - eight minutes before the end of the session, this item was discussed and left in abeyance at the time when the South Africa, which introduced the Resolution, indicated it would delete Para. 49 which concerned increasing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The US. wanted the paragreaph to be kept. Debate will continue tomorrow from 9:00 a.m.