Speakers at the Economic and Social Council drew attention today to the multidimensional nature of the challenge of generating equitable and inclusive employment opportunities as part of achieving sustainable global development, as that body concluded its 2015 integration segment.
In three interactive panel discussions today, the Economic and Social Council looked at how climate change challenges could be met through creating decent jobs, how dignity and prosperity could become the norm for working people, and how policies could translate sustained economic growth in Africa into “broad-based and job-rich outcomes” towards inclusive sustainable development.
With almost 200 million people in the 15 to 24 age group — a figure likely to double in the next three decades — Africa represented an opportunity as well as challenge, the President of Tanzania told the Economic and Social Council today as that body began its 2015 integration session on the theme “Achieving sustainable development through employment creation and decent work for all”.
The Commission on the Status of Women had a revitalized role to play in ensuring the 2030 “expiry date” for gender inequality across the world, as laid out in the Political Declaration adopted last week, said the United Nations top gender official at the closing of its fifty-ninth session today.
Like the Millennium Development Goals, progress on gender mainstreaming remained uneven across a landscape of United Nations functional commissions and work remained to be done to galvanize meaningful change in the post-2015 era, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today during interactive discussions on the penultimate day of its two-week annual session.
All people — no matter who they are — must benefit from development and be given opportunities to contribute to its design, implementation and monitoring, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today, concluding its general debate and addressing the impact of discrimination on marginalized women and girls.
Gender-sensitive, disaggregated data must be an integral part of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and no longer treated as an “afterthought”, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today as statistical experts took centre stage.
While some advances had been made for women, true change would require the participation of men and boys to challenge dynamics at the personal and professional levels, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today.
Gender equality and women’s empowerment must be at the heart of efforts to address the world’s most critical emerging challenges, including climate change, delegates told the Commission on the Status of Women today.
The plight of women in situations of armed conflict should remain at the forefront of the international community’s agenda, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today as it continued its general debate.
