Watch the live webcast: Millennium Development Goals – what have they brought for women and girls?
UN Women to host Stakeholders’ Forum of partners and activists to assess challenges and gains of the MDGs on 4-5 December 2013Date:
What: Stakeholders' Forum, Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls -- the road ahead
When: 4-5 December 2013
Where: UN Headquarters, Conference Building, Conference Room 3, LIVE webcast of the Forum is available above.
Why: The 58th Session of the Commission on Status of Women to be held in March 2014 will focus on the "Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls". This week, the two-day Stakeholders' Forum will provide input into CSW58 and beyond, by bringing together diverse voices on the progress made towards the MDGs as well as the challenges that remain in their implementation for women and girls. The Forum is open to UN pass holders. Top UN Women officials, including Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, will attend the Forum.
Read opening remarks by UN Women Deputy Executive Director Lakshmi Puri.
Background: As the 2015 target date for their achievement approaches, efforts to accelerate implementation of the MDGs are intensifying. Simultaneously, the post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being discussed. Since 2015 also marks the twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, implementation of the commitments made towards women's rights and gender equality nearly 20 years ago has taken on new urgency.
At the Stakeholders' Forum, sessions include a civil society panel focusing on women's life cycle which will explore how the MDGs affect women and girls from across the age spectrum. Another session will spotlight approaches to champion women's voice, leadership and rights and the lessons learned from experiences on the ground.
For more information:
For the Media: The Forum is open to UN-accredited media. Interviews can be facilitated with government, activists and civil society members. Please contact media staff listed above.
Among others, the following panelists are available:
Charlotte Bunch is a renowned women's rights activist and the Founding Director and Senior Scholar of the Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University. She has led CWGL's path-breaking work on violence against women as a human rights issue and has worked extensively on women's leadership programmes, including the Women's Global Leadership Institute. She also played a key role in the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign that worked for the creation of UN Women.
Rangita de Silva de Alwis is the Director of the Global Women's Leadership Initiative (GWLI) at the Wilson Centre. She is a widely respected scholar and gender equality advocate and has worked globally with a vast network of academic institutions, civil society and government organizations to develop innovative human rights initiatives around the world. She has also advised several UN entities and the UN Secretariat on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on State accountability and most recently helped develop a Gender Supplement to the UN Secretary-General's Guidelines on Disability.
Chamathya Fernando is a member of the Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association (SLGGA). She has represented the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) as a Youth Delegate and has actively participated in events and panels organized by the UN Foundation, World Young Women Caucus and UN Women. She is currently pursuing a Business Management degree.
Christina is a 17-year-old school student in New York City. She has been a girl advocate for The Working Group on Girls for three years, through Girls Learn International. She works on UN Women's Girls Participation Task-Force and the Steering Group.
Manizha Naderi was born in Kabul and raised in New York. She is the Executive Director of Women for Afghan Women (WAW), an NGO that works on the rights of Afghan women in Kabul and New York. She helped launch the Queens Community Outreach Programme in New York and moved to Kabul to launch WAW, helping the organization open nine Family Guidance Centres, eight women's shelters, four halfway houses and four Children's Support Centres in addition to spearheading a women's rights awareness-raising training programme that has reached over 125,000 Afghans.
Salina Sanou is an eminent pan-African expert on education and gender with a particular focus on women small-scale farmers in rural and conflict areas. She is the Head of Policy and Advocacy at the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD) and currently the focal point for the post-2015 agenda process within the organization.
Tania Edith Pariona Tarqui is a founding member of the Organization of Young Quechuas of Cayara (Ayacucho, Peru). She currently heads the Commission of Indigenous Children and Youth in the "Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indígenas de las Américas", an organization dedicated to women's empowerment. She also works as a social worker with a focus on indigenous peoples' rights.
Media contacts:
Oisika Chakrabarti, +1 646 781-4522, oisika.chakrabarti[at]unwomen.org
Sharon Grobeisen, +1 646 781-4753, sharon.grobeisen[at]unwomen.org
Hadrien Bonnaud, +1 646 781-4751, hadrien.bonaud[at]unwomen.org