Department of Women participates at 60th Session of United Nations Commission on Status of Women

South Africa participates at the 60th Session of the United Nations Commission on Status of Women, New York: 14 – 24 March 2016

South Africa will be participating at the 60th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW59) taking place from 14 to 24 March 2016. 2016 is a critical year for the UN CSW as it marks the 69th Anniversary since its formation in February 1947 and therefore a build up towards its 70th Anniversary next year. It is also a critical year for South Africa because marks three (3) important milestones, namely; the 20th Anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 40th Anniversary of the Soweto Youth Uprising as well as the 60th Anniversary of the 1956 women’s march.

It is important to note that since the democratic dispensation South Africa among others participated in the 4th World Conference of Women in 1995, and signed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in the same year. In line with resolution E/RES/2013/18 of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), South Africa is therefore committed to continue to implement the Beijing Declaration and its platform of Action. The Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action is one of the most remarkable documents to emerge from any intergovernmental conference. It is a blueprint for women’s empowerment and advancement.

CSW60 has been convened under the theme “Women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development”. The session is shaped by the twentieth anniversary of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action); the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (General Assembly resolution 69/313); and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Assembly resolution 70/1). In a time of immense challenges to and opportunities for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment, the present report identifies enabling conditions for gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Twenty years have now passed since the Fourth World Conference on Women set forth an expansive vision and body of commitments for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Our government has integrated gender equality and women’s empowerment into its policies and programmes. Notwithstanding progress made towards women’s empowerment and gender equality a lot still needs to be destroy barriers that still militate against gender equality and women’s empowerment.

CSW60 is attended by Representatives of UN Member States, UN Entities and the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) accredited Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The CSW program is divided into two distinct but interrelated sessions, namely; the high level Ministerial segment or formal CSW session and the NGO Forum which is in the main an informal session.

The high level Ministerial segment will dedicate time to identifying priorities for future action to realize gender equality, the empowerment of women and the human rights of women and girls. To this end, Ministers will participate in various panels where the following will be tackled:

1. Strengthening normative, legal and policy frameworks

• Accelerate the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action as a foundation for sustainable development and other agreements that promote women’s empowerment, and compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women;
• Repeal discriminatory laws and provisions in constitutions, and ensure that gender-responsive, non-discriminatory laws and policies and temporary special measures that empower women and girls are in place without delay, and monitor their effective implementation;
• Ensure that gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls and their human rights are central in national strategies, tools and instruments for implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
• Ensure coherence between national policies and strategies for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and those for sustainable development, to achieve results for all women and girls;
• Mainstream gender perspectives in all policies and programmes, by all government departments at all levels, to ensure gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

2. Enhancing national institutional arrangements

• Ensure that institutional structures that are given the task of guiding and overseeing national implementation of the 2030 Agenda include national gender equality mechanisms and have responsibility for gender mainstreaming in their terms of reference;
• Strengthen and enhance the authority and power, as well as the funding and capacity of national gender equality mechanisms at all levels and in all sectors of government and increase political support for and visibility of such mechanisms;
• Ensure that all national planning, decision-making, policy action and budgeting processes for implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development reflect gender perspectives and benefit all women and girls;

3. Fostering enabling environments for financing gender equality and women’s empowerment

• Ensure that macroeconomic policies contribute to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment by creating full and productive employment and decent work, mobilizing resources to finance social protection, infrastructure and essential services and reducing inequalities based on factors such as gender, age, income, race, ethnicity, migration status, disability and geographical location;
• Significantly increase and maximize targeted financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment across all sectors through all sources of funding, including domestic resources, official development assistance, the private sector and philanthropy;
• Increase domestic resource mobilization by implementing progressive tax systems that fully integrate gender equality objectives, and shift the tax burden to groups with higher incomes, and by ensuring that corporations, the financial sector and extractive industries pay their fair share;
• Employ gender-responsive budgeting to ensure that national planning, costing and budgeting processes support gender equality objectives;
• Monitor public expenditures, whether mobilised through domestic or international sources, and track and report on resource allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment to strengthen accountability for gender equality commitments;
• Support and increase resources for women’s organizations and gender equality advocates at the local, national, regional and global levels;
• Strengthen international cooperation and regulatory frameworks with a view to eliminating illicit financial flows and tax avoidance;
• Promote a socially responsible and accountable private sector that meets gender equality and human rights standards, including the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the labour standards of the ILO and Women’s Empowerment Principles;
• Assess the effectiveness of public-private partnerships in delivering public services and social protection essential for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and take action to prevent discriminatory impacts on women and girls;

4. Strengthening women’s leadership and supporting women’s civil society organizations

• Strengthen women’s leadership and women’s full and equal participation in decision-making in all areas of sustainable development;
• Create a safe and enabling environment for women’s and other civil society organizations everywhere so that they can fully participate in the implementation and follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda at the local, national, regional and global levels;
• Support the participation of civil society organisations, including women’s human rights groups and gender equality advocates, in the national, regional and global follow-up and review and accountability processes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

5. Strengthening gender-responsive data collection, follow-up and review, monitoring and accountability processes

• Support gender-responsive monitoring of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by strengthening the capacity of national statistical offices to systematically design, collect and analyse gender statistics and data disaggregated by sex, age and other relevant variables at the national level;
• Collect regularly and disseminate statistics on the minimum set of gender indicators and the core set of violence against women indicators endorsed by the Statistical Commission in 2013;
• Continue to develop and enhance standards and methodologies, for use at the national and international levels, to improve data to monitor progress for women and girls in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
• Ensure that national reviews and monitoring frameworks, including the adaptation of indicators to the national context, build on the agreed global indicator framework and support monitoring of all goals and targets across the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in a gender-responsive manner
• Ensure that the network of follow-up and review processes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development overseen at the global level by the High-level Political Forum systematically integrate a gender perspective.

Media enquiries:  
Charlotte Lobe
Cell: 076 213 9941
E-mail: charlotte.lobe@women.gov.za

Sixolisa Gcilishe
Cell: 082 429 1923
E-mail: sixolise.gcilishe@women.gov.za