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.

Following are the closing remarks of UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, as prepared for delivery, at the Commission on the Status of Women Intergenerational Dialogue on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, held in New York 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.

Violence against women and girls remained pervasive and widespread throughout the world, with no one country able to say that it had eradicated those “abhorrent” crimes, ministerial-level speakers said as the Commission on the Status of Women continued its general debate today.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the Women’s Empowerment Principles 2015 Annual Event, in New York today:

The urgency of integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment as a stand-alone goal, as well as a cross-cutting element of the post-2015 development agenda, dominated the second day of the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, with some speakers suggesting specific ways of advancing the overarching spirit of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the Public Commemoration of Beijing+20: “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality” event, held in New York today:

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the High-level Event on “Every woman, every child”, in New York today:

“As women thrive, so will we all,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as he opened the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women today, marking two decades of progress that he warned had been “unacceptably slow” in achieving gender equality since the historic adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the opening session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York today: