UNIS/INF/61
25 February 2005
Beijing+10 Meeting to Review Progress Made in Advancement of Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls
VIENNA, 25 February 2005 (UN Information Service) -- The Beijing Ten-Year Review and Appraisal will take place at the United Nations headquarters in New York, from 28 February to 11 March 2005, as part of the 49th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
The meeting presents an opportunity to emphasize the progress made in improving the human rights of women and achieving gender equality, in addition to drawing attention to the remaining challenges. Under the slogan “Beijing at Ten, Achieving Gender Equality, Development and Peace”, several issues relating to gender equality and women’s empowerment will be discussed at the meeting, from human rights, leadership, violence, HIV/AIDS, health, armed conflict, to trafficking and education of women and girls. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will open the meeting. The high-level plenary discussion, open to all United Nations Member States and Observers, will be followed by a roundtable of high-level government representatives.
The Secretary-General’s progress report, assessing the progress towards meeting the commitments made in Beijing and at the five-year review in 2000, which was held as a special session of the General Assembly will be presented. The report is based on a world survey, where 134 countries submitted information on their progress in implementation.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted at the Fourth World Congress on Women in Beijing in 1995. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the First World Conference on Women held in Mexico City in 1975. The 49th Session will give the UN Member States a chance to reaffirm the commitments they made in Beijing. The outcome of the Ten-Year Review and Appraisal will be presented to the 60th session of the General Assembly and will provide critical input to the high-level millennium review in September 2005.
The commemoration of International Women’s Day on 8 March falls during the CSW session and will be observed with two events at the UN Headquarters in New York. On 4 March, celebrating International Women’s Day and the Commemoration of 30 years of the UN’s work to promote women’s rights, Mr. Annan will be joined by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai, indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchú and Secretaries-General of previous UN World Conferences on Women.
The United Nations Office at Vienna will link with the opening of the event via videoconference. The United Nations Information Service in Vienna is organizing a panel discussion on 4 March on the occasion of the International Women’s Day and to mark the 30th anniversary of the First World Conference on Women held in Mexico City in 1975. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “Gender Equality Beyond 2005: Building a More Secure Future”, with sub-themes such as security, development, disaster response and human rights. Panellists from the City of Vienna, the Vienna NGO Committee on the Status of Women, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA) will focus on trafficking in women and girls, gender-related poverty, drug treatment for women, women affected by terrorism and women in space applications for disaster management.
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