Global: CSW fails to reach a consensus on key resolutions

The 56th Commission on the Status of Women whose main theme was scheduled to have concluded on 9 March, but protracted negotiations on the agreed conclusions forced the Commission to extend its work by one week.

Even then, they still did not manage to reach a consensus on the agreed conclusions on the priority theme, Empowering rural women, which is deeply regrettable.

At the closing of the session, the Commission Chair Marjon V. Kamara (Liberia) said: “I will not hide my great disappointment that we have found ourselves in this position. If we really want to tell the truth about it, I am not sure that we all came with a spirit of compromise.”

Since the negotiations among Member States had failed to generate a consensus outcome, she said she would prepare a “Chair’s Summary” reflecting the important discussions and themes that had emerged during the just-concluded session. That summary would be posted on the Commission’s website and reflected in its final report.

During the session, the delegations did manage to adopt a number of resolutions on vital matters, namely:
– Ending female genital mutilation (Document E/CN.6/2012/L.1)
– Situation of and assistance to Palestinian women (L.2)
– Release of Women and children taken hostage, including those subsequently imprisoned in armed conflicts (L.3)
– Gender equality and the empowerment of women in natural disasters (L.4),
– Eliminating maternal mortality and morbidity through the empowerment of women (L.5)
– Indigenous women: Key actors in poverty and hunger eradication (L.6)

The Commission also adopted a resolution on “Women, the girl child HIV and AIDS” (Document E/CN.6/2012/L.7). But they did not manage to reach a consensus. While the draft resolution originally contained 43 operative paragraphs. The adopted resolution eliminated all but two paragraphs, which would have the Commission take note of the Secretary-General’s report and would request that the Secretary-General submit a report to the Commission at its fifty-eighth session (2014).

These resolutions will now be sent to the Economic and Social Council for adoption.
Source: Compiled with information from Magnus Holtfodt – Forum for kvinnerogutviklingsspÁ¸rsmÁ¥l.