62nd Commission on the Status of Women | Priorities Paper
Each year nearly 4,000 NGO representatives and UN member states participate at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). It is the largest annual gathering of the international women’s movement at the UN – a time of collective advocacy and action to advance gender equality and the rights of women and girls. CSW is an important advocacy avenue by which we as a nation, and as a global community can hold our governments to account and ensure we are making progress.
The theme for 62nd CSW was the Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls. At NCOSS we heard from our members, and women and girls from across the state, about the key priorities for women and girls living in rural and remote areas. We undertook grassroots regional consultation, comprising six regional conferences and 38 workshops, attended by 570 people across NSW.
We drew this together with the intelligence and insights from our NCOSS Women’s Advisory groups, including our Seven Sisters (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s) Panel, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Women’s Panel, Young Women’s Advisory Panel and the 150 organisations engaged with NCOSS Women. All these groups are represented by committed and dedicated leaders from the community sector, government, business, unions and academia, who are developing innovative and creative solutions for women’s equality in their communities.
What we heard from them was a clear set of priorities. Priorities that highlight the strength of our communities in NSW, their resilience and innovation in guiding solutions that will make change.
NCOSS took the priorities outlined in this paper to CSW62 and advocated strongly to see that the outcomes from CSW reflected the voices of our members and the diverse women and girls that we represent in NSW.