With the world celebrating International Women’s Day today, ministers and other high-level Government officials underscored the need to strengthen women and girls’ inclusion in innovation and technology, close the digital gender divide and address digital violence as the Commission on the Status of Women continued its sixty-seventh session.
Economic and Social Council
Ministers and other high-level officials spotlighted ways in which their Governments are promoting digital technology, education and innovation for girls and women, while also ensuring online safety to narrow the gap in the gender digital divide, as the Commission on the Status of Women continued its sixty-seventh session today.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Commission on the Status of Women, in New York today:
Highlighting the new opportunities digital technology is creating for women and girls around the world, speakers renewed calls for investments to bridge the gender digital divide, ensure a safe digital environment and ensure the full participation of women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and math, as the Commission on the Status of Women opened its annual session today.
The Commission for Social Development, acting by consensus on the final day of its sixty-first session, decided to forward four draft resolutions to the Economic and Social Council for adoption — including one focused on creating full employment and decent work for all to overcome inequalities and accelerate the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Detailing the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts on the employment market, delegates outlined strategies to overcome inequalities within and between countries and to provide decent work opportunities for all.
The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations concluded the first part of its 2023 session today, which began on 23 January, approving its report as orally revised, and having recommended 214 organizations for consultative status and taken note of 543 quadrennial reports.
As the Commission for Social Development continued its general discussion today, delegates explored ways to overcome multiple crises — including the COVID-19 pandemic, rising conflicts and climate change — that have exacerbated existing inequalities between and within nations.
Calling attention to widening inequality gaps and crises in the labour market exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, both United Nations senior officials and speakers alike stressed in an interactive dialogue that urgent action was needed to generate decent work and support recovery and social protection programmes, as the Commission for Social Development’s sixty-first session continued today.
To fully realize the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, the international community must intensify and strengthen its commitments to the well-being and rights of older persons, a senior United Nations official told the Commission for Social Development today during its high-level panel discussion on the Plan’s fourth review and appraisal.