Economic and Social Council: No name

While more Governments were adopting laws and policies to address the multiple forms of violence against girls, those youths still bore the heaviest burden of the failure to secure equitable development for all — as victims of female genital mutilation, rape and both commercial and sexual exploitation — a scenario which, if left unchecked, would morally doom efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today.

Education was the gateway to economic opportunity and the key means for unlocking women’s potential, the Commission on the Status of Women was told today as it continued its high-level review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome of the General Assembly’s twenty-third special session on gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century.

The proverbial glass ceiling not only continued to curtail the aspirations of schoolgirls and women scientists and engineers around the world, but was best described in too many societies as a “cast-iron ceiling”, the Commission on the Status of Women was told today during two expert panels on bolstering the access of women and girls to science, technology, education and training.

While the last year had seen significant efforts to improve women’s status around the world — including the landmark creation of the United Nations new gender entity, UN Women — the global report card was decidedly mixed, but investment in girls’ education could propel both economic growth and women’s equality, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today, as she opened the fifty-fifth session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

The Commission on the Status of Women will hold its fifty-fifth session at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 22 February to 4 March 2011, two weeks that will bring together Government officials and representatives of the United Nations, civil society, the media and the private sector.

The Commission for Social Development wrapped up its forty-ninth session today by approving without a vote five draft resolutions calling for wide-ranging steps, from support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the upcoming review of the action plan on ageing to improving the lot of youth, persons with disabilities and families.

The Economic and Social Council today forwarded to the General Assembly a resolution concerning the structure of the World Food Programme’s Executive Board, essentially maintaining the current distribution of seats and rotation pattern.

Following are Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks at an informal briefing to the Economic and Social Council on progress in implementing General Assembly resolution 64/289 on system-wide coherence, in New York, 17 February:

The Commission for Social Development took up five draft resolutions today as it approached the end of its forty-ninth session, built around the theme of poverty eradication.

As Haiti prepared for its second round of presidential elections on 20 March, United Nations officials told the Economic and Social Council today that political stability in the Caribbean nation could only be achieved by Haitians themselves, urging that utmost care be taken to ensure the appointment of a responsible Government to lead the people through the next stage of recovery and reconstruction.