Economic and Social Council

Experts will try to figure out how to handle growing amounts of solid waste, a problem compounded by ever-rising urbanization, population growth and global rates of consumption, at a meeting in Tokyo, Japan, on 18 and 19 March.

The well-integrated system of buses, subways and trains in Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea, will highlight the health, economic and quality-of-life benefits of a sustainable public transport system during a meeting in that city on 16‑17 March.

The Commission on the Status of Women concluded its fifty-fourth session today with the adoption of six resolutions on a range of issues concerning gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the approval of one text, by recorded vote, on Palestinian women, to be sent to the Economic and Social Council for adoption. The Commission also adopted the draft report of its current session, as well as the provisional agenda of its fifty-fifth session.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon today called on the international community to urgently join forces to end one of the most brutal and entrenched forms of gender discrimination ‑‑ violence against women, in an address to the Commission on the Status of Women’s fifty-fourth session.

Gender inequality and discrimination were key drivers of women’s and girl’s increased vulnerability to HIV infection, and while various global commitments had been made, national interventions had not been implemented on a scale that made a true difference in prevention, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today as it addressed health and related issues on its last day of high-level debate.

Women grass-roots activists should be given more clout in forming policies at both the local and international levels, speakers said today at a Headquarters press conference on the role of women food producers and their coping strategies in times of severe food insecurity.

Addressing the Commission on the Status of Women’s fifty-fourth session this afternoon, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said the General Assembly’s proposal to create a United Nations body for gender issues was an historic opportunity to give women a stronger voice in global governance and policymaking.

Following is the text of Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks, in the Commission on the Status Women, to the expert panel in preparation for the Economic and Social Council ministerial review on implementing internationally agreed goals and commitments on gender equality and empowerment of women, today in New York:

While implementing the Beijing Platform for Action had been hamstrung by severe resource constraints and a lack of will to combat entrenched stereotypes, more and more women were participating in high-level political decision-making in their countries, with some of the biggest gains made in Africa and Latin America, speakers in the Commission on the Status of Women said today in continued debate.

As the international community grappled with the global financial crisis, officials in countries from Chile to Ireland were stepping up efforts to economically empower and improve the workplace status of their female citizens, delegates and a senior United Nations official said today as the fifty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women continued.