WO=MEN in New York

Evi van Dunger at the UN As spring is setting in, the annual UN Commission on Population and Development (CPD) will take place in New York. I have the privilege to attend another physical gathering in New York and be part of the Dutch government delegation to the CPD.  This year, United Nations Member States will come together in a hybrid format to discuss the progress (or lack thereof) on the ICPD agenda . The 55th session of the CPD will take place from 25 – 29 April. However, negotiations started before that! Since not all CPDs have ended with UN Member States finding consensus, I am really curious what this year’s session will bring!

Friday 18 th of March was the date. For months, the Sex Workers Working Group of the Count Me In! Consortium prepared for it with the Global Network of Sex Work Projects -NSWP - and co-sponsor Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other bodies, including CNV Internationaal and the government of New Zealand also joined. The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) this year had as a review theme: 'women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work’ and hosted our co-sponsored side event.

MenEngage CSW66 statement As the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) recently concluded, it provides a key moment to reflect on the value contribution of intersectional feminist approaches in transforming patriarchal masculinities and work with men and boys for gender and climate justice. MenEngage Alliance members and partners followed and contributed to the CSW alongside other feminist organizations through statements , side events and influencing of the Agreed Conclusions.

The most recent IPCC reports show the scientific proof of a situation that feminist and climate activists have been seeing on the ground for years: if we don’t act now on limiting our emissions and taking more ambitious climate action, the results of climate change will be irreversible and many parts of our world will be unlivable. It shows our current policies to address the climate and environmental crises are not sufficient. We need to be more ambitious!  This is where we, as WECF and part of the global feminist movement, had hoped CSW66 would have made a difference.

Hazar bij FemTopia op 8 maart 2022 Hazar Chaouni van Feminists Against Ableism was een van de diverse vertegenwoordigers uit het Nederlands maatschappelijk middenveld bij de - virtuele - CSW NGO briefing op 1 februari 2022. Zij gaf daar een pitch aan de Nederlandse CSW delegatie. Helaas kon ze zelf door omstandigheden niet actief betrokken zijn bij de CSW dit jaar. Hieronder een inzicht in hoe disability terugkomt in het slotdocument van de CSW dit jaar. En meteen ook de volledige pitch van Hazar om na te lezen.

Women, girls, and gender minorities are uniquely and disproportionately affected by the damaging environmental impacts of conflict, while lacking and demanding access to shape the necessary decision-making in environmental governance and peacebuilding structures. Nonetheless, women activists are fashioning innovative ways to turn around the negative impacts of conflict linked-environmental damage and climate risks impacting their communities, in effect preventing future conflict.   On 15 March 2022, during the Gendered Environmental Impacts of Conflict virtual panel on the margins of the 66 th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66), leading women activists and practitioners from Syria, South Sudan, Iraq, and Colombia shared powerful insights on the nexus of conflict, the environment, and gender.