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KAGIDER participates in 60th session of UN Commission on the Status of Women in NY

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KAGIDER-NEWYORK-1UN Women is an entity created by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010 for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women to accelerate the Organization’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact.

In this article I would like to write about the 60th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which took place in New York between March, 14th and 28th, 2016 and our participation in said event as KAGIDER (Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey) on which occasion we all felt deeply honored to represent Turkish Women at such an important event.

The 60th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) focused on implementation of the ambitious agreement: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“Women’s Empowerment Principles Annual Events” were realized on 15-16 March 2016, at UN Headquarters in New York city, with a topic on “gender equality and the role of business” in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by UN Member States in September 2015 are accepted as a universal roadmap for people and planet, and they address the key challenges of the 21st century,  poverty, inequality and climate change to be of in the first plan.

The priority theme for the CSW60th session was the women’s empowerment and its link to sustainable development. It is agreed that there is a need to create a suitable environment for gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda so as to make sustainable development possible. It is also clearly accepted actions should play the biggest role to ensure enabling laws and policies, solid institutional infrastructures, adequate financial resources, strengthening of participation mechanisms, and investment in sex-disaggregated data, to guide national action.

On the other hand as it looks today women have to cope with true challenges such as, they have far less seats in parliaments (one in five), they still to earn much less as compared to men, have fewer assets and moreover they have to bear the unfair burden of unpaid work and care.

To be even worse, violence against women continues to be one of the most widespread human rights violations. Progress in the implementation of agreed conclusions of 2013 to end violence against women and girls was also evaluated by the commission, not to forget this problem has to do with big economic costs.

Finally, 60th session of the UN Commission of the Status of Women was closed with the following remarks of UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka:

“We will ensure that the bold and ambitious vision of the Sustainable Development Goals is capitalized through the implementation of the whole Agenda that has been captured in this agreement. This Agenda is indivisible and universal. It is critical for us to ensure that 2030 arrives with women and girls at a different place, in a world where there will be substantive equality. As we speak now, no country has achieved gender equality. But we hope that at the end of the implementation of this Agenda some countries in this room will have achieved gender equality by 2030.”

Also “”Women First” project of KAGIDER which has been carrying out the Turkish term presidency of W20 and organizing side events since 2012 was presented to the whole world as a story of success, under the title of “How to empower women in 10 months with a sustainable model a in rural area”.

Said project was carried out in joint effort with Vodafone Turkey and Soma Municipality and managed to become a cooperative providing 370 women in the area with a sustainable/permanent source of income, in a period of ten months only.

Semiha ÜNAL
Business Consultant for Turkey
Owner & Director of BUSINESSSUPPORTTURKEY.com

 

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