Committee on the Status of Women-9 and Development (CWD), 08 February 2008

The Bureau meeting of the Committee on Women and Development of the Economic Commission for Africa met in Addis Ababa to review the implementation of Beijing +10 and the preparations for Beijing +15 sub regional and regional and the CWD meeting.

The UNECA is spearheading the review process in collaboration with the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW). The review process presents challenges of measuring not just progress, but accountability towards the various Conventions, Protocols, Treaties and documents ratified by African member States. Preparations are underway for the Beijing +15 Review. UNECA is guiding the process for Africa reporting on progress in implementing the BPFA in a systematic and coherent manner. The African review is planned to take place throughout 2009, so as to report on the African position for the global review 2010. The focus of the review will be on12 critical areas of concern, the MDGs, and other frameworks that have a bearing on African development. The CWD Bureau will be called upon to assume a leadership role in this exercise.

It is evident that Africa has collectively registered progress on several fronts. The strengthening of the various Regional processes, and the setting up of new development targets has reinforced this progress. To date almost all African countries have ratified CEDAW. Twenty-one sectoral action plans have been developed using the indicators of implementation of the follow-up strategy on Beijing +10 and the AGDI. The ECA has developed tools for monitoring and evaluation including the AGDI; a useful tool in the APRM process has been piloted in 12 countries and 2008 it will be implemented in 21 more African countries

In this connection, in preparation for the Beijing +15 review, members of the Bureau agreed to use questionnaires for the review and that the ministers will give their comments on the questionnaires before they are finalized. It was agreed that ACGS would send the draft evaluation questionnaire to ministers (Bureau members by May 2008 for their blue print. It will then be finalized and will be sent to member states in June 2008 and is to be completed by November 2008. Sub-

Regional conferences will be organized between March and April 2009.

What is CWD ?

The Committee on Women and Development (CWD) is a statutory body of experts that advises the UNECA and provides leadership in Africa on gender related issues. It is composed of twenty-one member states, five resource persons and thirteen NGOs. It was established 31 years ago at the recommendation of the first regional conference on the integration of women and development organized by ECA in Nouakchott, Mauritania in 1977. The Executive \secretary of ECA convenes biennial meetings of CWD .

The Mandate of CWD

The mandate of CWD is broad range inter-alia advocacy and policy guidance role with a view to promoting gender-sensitive policies necessary institutional changes at national, sub-regional and regional levels

Achievements of CWD to-date

Some of the achievements of CWD include:

· Promoting gender mainstreaming as a viable strategy for achieving equality between women and men;

· putting women's issues on the agenda of the ECA Conference of Ministers of finance and planning;

· Articulation of the aspirations and needs of African women as expressed in the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action

· Promoting African women's participation in decision-making processes at national, sub-regional and regional levels;

· Mobilizing and preparing African governments for effective implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action; and

· Undertaking periodic reviews of progress in the implementation of strategies for the advancement of women e.g. the Sixth African Regional Conference on Women - November, 1999, and the seventh African Regional Conference in October 2004

 

51^st session of the Commission on the Status of Women – 26 February to 9 March 2007

In accordance with its multi-year programme of work for 2007-2009, the Commission on the Status of Women will consider “The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child” as its priority theme during its fifty-first session in 2007.

Full information on the 51^st session can be found at:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/51sess.htm

In order to contribute to a further understanding of the priority theme for the 51^st session, and to assist the Commission in its deliberations, the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), organized an Expert Group Meeting on the topic. The meeting was hosted by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, from 25 to 28 September 2006. For more information on the Expert Group Meeting, and the preparatory online discussion, visit:

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/elim-disc-viol-girlchild/egm_elim_disc_viol_girlchild.htm