Meetings Coverage

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.

SENDAI, JAPAN, 15 March — Building back better after earthquakes, cyclones and other destructive forces and international cooperation in reducing harm from future crises were the focus of high-level discussions today in Sendai, Japan, as the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction continued.

SENDAI, JAPAN, 14 March — “Sustainability starts in Sendai,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared at the opening of the Third World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan, asserting the largest-ever high-level meeting on the subject was “the first stop on our journey to a new future”.

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.

Concluding its 2015 session, the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations adopted without a vote Friday evening the draft report of the session, laying out the proposals, recommendations and conclusions submitted by its Working Group of the Whole on a wide range of peacekeeping issues.

Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) delegates today expressed concerns about the costs and efficacy of implementing a flexible workplace environment at United Nations Headquarters and welcomed the development of a long-term capital maintenance programme for the Organization as they scrutinized the Secretary-General’s proposals on both topics.

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.

Opening their ninth session, members of the Peacebuilding Commission’s Organizational Committee today elected that body’s 2015 bureau and chairs of its country configurations, as well as discussed its goals for the coming year.

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.

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.