Economic and Social Council: Meetings Coverage

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 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.

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.

Social policy could only be transformative and successful in reducing poverty and putting a nation on a path to sustainable, equitable growth if it was integral to policies that addressed broader socioeconomic and political goals, Sarah Cook, Director of the UNRISD, told the Commission on Social Development today as it continued its forty-ninth session.

Acting on a number of organizational issues, the Economic and Social Council today decided that its meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions, World Trade Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) would be held at Headquarters on 10 and 11 March. Approving the provisional agenda for its 2011 substantive session, as orally corrected, the Council also adopted working arrangements for that four-week session.

As Member States discussed ways to envelop the pressing needs of an ageing population that could reach 1.6 billion in the developing world by 2050, the Commission on Social Development today heard three experts lay out ways in which social protection measures could shield individuals and their families from the most severe economic shocks emanating from a financial crisis.

Warning of the social costs to economic growth, such as social unrest and protests, and exclusion of the most vulnerable segments of society, the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty told the Commission for Social Development today that the only way to ensure that growth benefited the poor was to include in it a human rights component.