Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

In progress at UNHQ

Economic and Social Council

WOM/1893

Speakers Call for ‘Crystal Clear’ Priorities in Efforts to Improve Health, Protect Rights of Rural Women, as Commission Continues General Discussion

“Crystal clear” priorities – many of which would require major shifts in the attitudes of world leaders - began to take shape in the Commission on the Status of Women today, with senior-level Government officials calling for innovative strategies to improve the health of rural women, protect their rights and facilitate their engagement in economic and public life.
WOM/1892

Microcredit Services Not Enough to Improve Lot of Poor Rural Women, Despite Empowering Millions, Commission Told as General Discussion Continues

The use of microcredit had financially empowered millions of impoverished women in rural areas around the world, but had not been enough to improve their economic lot, a senior official of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) told the Commission on the Status of Women today as it held a panel discussion on “Economic Empowerment of Rural Women”.
WOM/1890

Unleashing Rural Women’s Potential Critical to Ending Global Poverty, Hunger, Speakers Say as Commission on Status of Women Opens Fifty-sixth Session

Unleashing the potential of rural women — a quarter of the world’s population — was critical to ending global poverty and hunger, high-level speakers said today as the Commission on the Status of Women opened its fifty-sixth annual session. “Empowering women is not just good for women, it is good for all of us,” Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).
WOM/1889

Commission on Status of Women to Focus on Rural Women, Their Contributions, Challenges during Fifty-sixth Session at Headquarters, 27 February–9 March

The fifty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women will open on 27 February at United Nations Headquarters, focused on the theme of empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, sustainable development and current challenges. The Commission will agree on urgent actions needed to make a real difference in the lives of millions of rural women.

Press Conference on 2011 Forest Heroes Awards

Everyday people — from a Japanese oyster fisherman cultivating his business by planting trees in an estuary devastated by the 2011 tsunami, to two Michigan teenagers campaigning to ensure Girl Scout cookies and other palm oil-based products were deforestation-free — were among the panellists sharing their grass-roots approaches to forest preservation at a Headquarters press conference today.