(New York, 25 March) – The 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66)—the second largest UN intergovernmental meeting in New York—closed its two-week long session today (14 to 25 March) acknowledging the important role of women and girls as agents of change for sustainable development, in particular safeguarding the environment and addressing the adverse effects of climate change. The agreed conclusions adopted by Member States are a blueprint for world leaders to promote women’s and girls’ full and equal participation and leadership in the designing and implementation of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies and programmes moving forward.
The Executive Director of UN Women, Sima Bahous, said: “The agreements reached by the Commission come at a point when the world urgently needs new and coherent solutions to the interlocking crises that impact us all. We now have a roadmap with specific, practical measures for global resilience, recovery, and a shared understanding of the fact that solutions depend on bringing girls and women to the centre. Let’s capitalize on the work done here, put these agreements into immediate practice and move these decisions forward through all the major forums ahead, including COP27.”
CSW66 expressed concern about the disproportionate effects of climate change, environmental degradation, and disasters on all women, girls, which can include loss and livelihoods, water scarcity and destruction of schools and health facilities. It also stressed the need to eliminate persistent historical and structural inequalities and discriminatory laws and policies as well as negative social norms, gender stereotypes, and discriminatory social norms that perpetuate multiple forms of discrimination. Women and girls are faced with specific challenges due to displacement, including forced or prolonged displacement.
The Commission expressed concern about the economic and socio-economic fallout of the COVID-19 epidemic, which has compounded the impact of climate change and environmental degradation and disasters. It has also pushed people further behind the poverty line and into extreme poverty. The global pandemic has also increased demand for domestic and unpaid care, as well as reported instances of violence.
The Commission urged the United Nations system, international finance institutions, and multi-stakeholder platforms, to continue supporting Member States in achieving gender equality and the empowerment for all women and girls in the contexts of climate change, environmental, and disaster risk reduction programmes and policies. Only by addressing the underlining barriers that exacerbate women’s and girls’ vulnerabilities in their social and economic status, safety, well-being and livelihoods, will it be possible to tackle the pervasive disadvantages in access to, ownership of and control over land and resources; equal access to services such as universal healthcare and quality education, gender-based violence prevention; and the equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work which hampers women’s resilience and rights.
The document’s outcome calls for the leveraging and strengthening of women’s full, equal and meaningful influence and participation. It is essential to make specific efforts to raise the awareness and knowledge of marginalized females, including older women, indigenous women, migrant women, and those who live in conflict or rural areas. Their voices must be heard and taken into consideration when planning, conserving and sustainable use natural resources and climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives and programmes.
The following must be considered when addressing climate change, environmental disasters and risk reduction.
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Promoting women’s and girls’ full and equal participation and leadership to make natural resource management and climate, environment and disaster risk action more effective.Women and girls are actively involved in climate and environmental action at all levels. However, their voice, agency, and participation must be supported, resourced and valued.
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Expanding gender-responsive finance at scale for climate and environment action and to reach women’s organizations, enterprises and cooperatives.The Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact have made commitments to mitigation, adaptation, the provision and mobilization finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building. The developed countries must mobilize and fulfill their obligations to small island developing states and developing countries. Climate finance must be more gender-responsive to increase the capacity of women, youth, local and marginalized populations, and their organizations.
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Building women’s resilience in the context of agricultural and food systems, forest and fisheries management and the sustainable energy transition.Particularly for girls and women in poverty, soils and forests, as well as fisheries and oceans, are major sources of income, livelihoods and employment. Equal access to resources and productive assets like land, water, technology and advice can lead to greater food safety, renewable energy, and more just, resilient, and sustainable systems.
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Enhancing gender statistics, sex-disaggregated and gender-responsive just transformations. Disaggregated data and gender statistics on climate change, environmental degradation and disaster risk reduction, especially with regard to gender differences in vulnerability and adaptive approaches, will enhance the capacity of policymakers to develop and adopt effective, evidence-based policies and programmes at all levels and boost women’s and girls’ specific contributions to environmental conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The Commission also highlighted the mutually beneficial relationship between gender equality and full, effective, and accelerated implementations of both the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action as well as gender-responsive implementations for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Commission also resolved to conduct the Beijing+30 assessment in 2025 with the goal of assessing the implementation of the Platform by each country and to identify strategies for further development. The Commission will also include an interactive dialogue with youth in its annual programme of work, beginning with CSW67. This will facilitate exchanges between youth representatives from delegations within Member States.
The intergovernmental process was being watched by a high-level multistakeholder intergenerational dialogue on generation equality. It marked almost a year since the Mexico Forum, and eight months since the unprecedented number commitments made at the Paris Forum. Dashboard for CommitmentsThe Dashboard will make all 2000 existing commitments searchable and easily visible to everyone. Dashboard is a key component of the accountability framework that will accelerate gender equality results and track their contribution to the achievement the Sustainable Development Goals. In September 2022, the UN General Assembly will publish the first report in the margins of its 77th session.
Other High-level Events involving Member States, UN Agencies, civil society organizations, activists and private sector partners included UN Women’s side events on ‘Climate Shocks Exacerbating Humanitarian Crisis, Insecurity and Gender Inequality’ and ‘Beyond COVID-19: Advancing Gender Responsive Policies on Climate, Care and Jobs for a Sustainable and Equal Future’, as well as the Secretary-General’s Town Hall with women’s organizations and feminist civil society. CSW66, as in the past, attracted high-level participation by Member States, including two Heads and Governments, three vice-presidents and 111 ministers. CSW66 featured 213 side events organized by Member States, UN entities, and many in collaboration. More than 800 virtual NGO parallel events were also held by civil societies. This enabled for ongoing dialogue with key policymakers to ensure that their voices are heard in these crucial processes.
The Commission welcomed the major contributions of civil society organizations including women’s and youth-organizations, women human rights defenders, women journalists and and trade unions, in promoting and protecting the human rights of all women and girls, including in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. It expressed concern that they face many barriers to full participation, leadership and leadership, including decreasing funding, violence and harassment, reprisals, and threats to the physical safety of their members.
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