CSW resumed session: BRIEFING for Thursday, 1 April

COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN 43RD SESSION: 1 April 1999, New York

The CSW resumed its session (seventeenth meeting) for one day on 1 April, 1999 at the UN in New York. It resumed consideration of the draft agreed conclusions contained in documents E/CN.6/1999/L.2/Re.1 and E/CN.6/1999/L.3/Rev1. The CSW adopted both the documents. On the proposal of the Chairperson, the CSW agreed to request the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to endorse the draft agreed conclusions, as adopted by the Commission. During the Closing Plenary on 19 March, 1999 no final agreement had been reached on these documents. Hence the resumed one day session thus brought to final conclusion the consideration of agenda item 3.

The Special-Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women introduced the draft provisional agenda for the Commission at its next session (E/CN.6/199/L.12) which was also adopted by the CSW thereby concluding its consideration of agenda item 7. The CSW also agreed to annex the summaries of the moderators of the two panel discussions (E/CN.6/1999/CRP.4 and CRP.6) to its final report and entrusted the Secretariat with its completion. The CSW thus concluded its consideration of agenda item 8.

The CSW also adopted after oral revisions the Resolution on "Situation of women and girls in Afghanistan". The draft resolution had been sponsored by a group of 29 countries and informal consultations had continued before the final draft was arrived at. The US informed the CSW on the results of the informal consultations and Colombia, Georgia, Mongolia, Nepal, Russian Federation, Liechtenstein and Venezuela joined in sponsoring the draft.

The Chairperson made a statement and declared closed the forty-third session of the CSW.

Many delegates from developed and developing countries expressed satisfaction on the ultimate outcome of the CSW. The adoption of the resolutions on women and health and the institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women was seen by many as a substantive outcome for the long session. Though the delegates had to continue on long informals the outcome had narrowed the different view points and lead to the successful conclusion of the session. Thus the CSW forty-third session successfully moved the process further towards the next PrepCom in March 2000 and the Special Session in June 2000.

BRIEFING for Friday, 19 March

COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN (CSW) ACTING AS THE PREPARATORY COMMITTEE (PREPCOM) FOR THE SPECIAL SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ENTITLED "WOMEN 2000: GENDER EQUALITY, DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY" (19 MARCH, 1999)

After further informal negotiations earlier in the day, the Chair called to order the fifth meeting of the PrepCom on Friday afternoon. She asked delegates to take action on the draft resolution (contained in document E/CN.6/1999/PC/L.2) regarding 'Preparations for the special session of the General Assembly' (agenda item 2). After considering the text paragraph-by-paragraph, the Commission approved the resolution for adoption by the General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This completed the PrepCom's work on agenda item 2.

Moving on to agenda item 3, delegates adopted the PrepCom's provisional agenda for its next session (document E/CN.6/1999/PC/L.3). It then adopted the report of this session of the PrepCom (E/CN.6/1999/PC/L.1) and agreed to append conference room paper number 1, which contains a summary of the general debate held the previous week under CSW agenda item 4. Delegates also entrusted the Secretariat with finalizing the report so the events of today could be included. With the official work of the meeting finished, the Chair noted that the PrepCom would be holding informal consultations during the first two weeks of June to deliberate on a text on the outcome of the GA special session.

After this, the Secretary explained that ECOSOC will be holding informal negotiations on Tuesday, 23 March that will include discussion of the CSW's recommendation that it holds a resumed one-day session on Thursday, 1 April (E/CN.6/1999/L.13). ECOSOC will make its decision on this recommendation at a session on Thursday, 25 March 1999. If the resumed session is approved, it will consider three revised texts:

• document E/CN.6/1999/L.2/Rev.1 - revised agreed conclusions on women and health; - document E/CN.6/1999/L.3/Rev.1
• revised agreed conclusions on institutional mechanisms;
• document E/CN.6/1999/L.8/Rev.1 entitled "Women and mental health, with emphasis on special groups".

The Chair thanked delegates for their spirit of consensus and declared the PrepCom's second session closed.

THINGS TO LOOK FOR: Our summary edition with detailed coverage of this session of the CSW will be posted online at this website early next week.

Today's photo highlights

CSW-related links

Offical U.N. CSW-43 web site

ENB coverage of the Beijing Conference

REPORT OF THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN (Declaration Platform for Action)