PREPARATORY BODY RECOMMENDS SPECIAL ASSEMBLY SESSION IN JUNE 2000 TO REVIEW IMPLEMENTATION OF 1985 AND 1995 WOMENS CONFERENCES DOCUMENTS

Press Release
GA/9398
WOM/1051

PREPARATORY BODY RECOMMENDS SPECIAL ASSEMBLY SESSION IN JUNE 2000 TO REVIEW IMPLEMENTATION OF 1985 AND 1995 WOMENS CONFERENCES DOCUMENTS

The General Assembly would decide that its High-level Review in the year 2000 of the implementation of the 1985 Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action be held as a special session of the Assembly from 5 to 9 June of that year, by a resolution approved Friday night by the Commission on the Status of Women, acting as the preparatory committee for the review.

The text (document E/CN.6/1998/L.11/Rev.1), approved without a vote, is recommended for action by the Economic and Social Council for adoption by the General Assembly.

By its provisions, the Assembly would decide that the preparatory work should be carried out by the Commission at its forty-third and forty-fourth sessions, in 1999 and 2000, respectively, and that the sessions be extended by five days for the preparations to be completed.

The Assembly would also decide that the special session reaffirm commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action -- adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women -- and further focus on obstacles encountered in implementation of the Platform, as well as on strategies to overcome those obstacles.

By other terms of the resolution, governments which have not yet submitted national plans of action to the Division for the Advancement of Women would be encouraged to do so by September this year as an input to the start of the review process. They would be required to submit information on their implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, focusing particularly on positive actions, lessons learned, obstacles, key challenges remaining and a vision for gender equality in the next millennium. Governments would also be invited to involve civil society in the preparations of their national evaluations.

The Secretary-General would be called upon to develop, in collaboration with the Regional Commissions, a standardized questionnaire with a focused set of indicators on all critical areas of concern as a framework to assist governments in their assessment and reporting on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.

- 2 - Press Release GA/9398 WOM/1051 13 March 1998

Also by the text, the Secretary-General would be requested to invite all entities of the United Nations system, including its specialized agencies, funds and programmes, to be actively involved in preparatory activities, and to participate at the highest level at the special session, including through presentations on best practices, obstacles encountered and a vision for the future to accelerate implementation and address new and emerging trends.

Furthermore, the Secretary-General would be asked to provide by the end of 1999 a compilation of updated statistics and indicators on the situation of women and girls around the world by issuing, for example, a volume of The World's Women. He would also be requested to integrate in his reports information from relevant treaty monitoring bodies, within their mandates, on their efforts to mainstream a gender perspective.

In other provisions of the draft, the General Assembly would recommend that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank focus on gender issues in the Human Development Report and the World Development Report, respectively, for the year 2000.

The Assembly would emphasize the important role of non-governmental organizations in the implementation of the Platform for Action and the need for their active involvement in preparations for the special session, as well as the need to ensure appropriate arrangements for their contributions to it.

According to a Secretariat statement on the programme budget implications of the draft (document E/CN.6/1998/L.14), the conference and general services requirements for the year 2000 are estimated, on a full-cost basis, at $532,700 for the special session and $149,700 for the one-week extension of the forty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, or a total estimated cost of $682,400. Those requirements would be dealt with within the overall provision for the conference-servicing of United Nations meetings and conferences to be included in the proposed programme budget for the biennium 2000-2001.

The Commission on the Status of Women was entrusted with preparatory work on the High-level Review by General Assembly resolution 52/100 of 12 December 1997. Acting as Preparatory Committee, the Commission held four sets of consultations during its forty-second session.

Patricia Flor (Germany), Chairman of the Commission, also chaired the preparatory meeting.

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