Preparations for the Special Session of the General Assembly Entitled "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century"

A/RES/54/142No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 110Implementation of the outcome of the 4th World Conference on Women, published in 2000.

What subjects does this mandate have?

10 topics

Conferences Documents Gender Equality Information Exchange Non-Governmental Organizations Programme Implementation Programmes of Action Questionnaires Report Preparation Women's Advancement

What does this mandate say?

25 operative paragraphs

Reiterates its invitation to Governments that have not yet done so to prepare national action plans and reports on the implementation of the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women, and underlines the importance of involving relevant actors of civil society, especially non-governmental organizations;

Invites Member States, in preparing implementation plans and reports and responding to the questionnaire on the implementation of the Platform for Action, to report on good practices, positive actions, lessons learned, the use of qualitative and quantitative indicators for measuring progress and, wherever possible, on key challenges remaining in the critical areas of concern of the Platform for Action and obstacles encountered;

Encourages all the regional commissions and other intergovernmental regional organizations to carry out activities in support of the preparations for the special session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”, inter alia, by holding preparatory meetings to ensure a regional perspective on implementation and on further actions and initiatives, as well as on a vision for gender equality, development and peace in the twenty-first century, and to make their reports available in 2000 to the Commission on the Status of Women acting as the preparatory committee for the special session;

Encourages all entities of the United Nations system, including the programmes, funds and specialized agencies, and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, to be involved actively in preparatory activities and to participate at the highest level in the special session, including through presentations on best practices, obstacles encountered and a vision for the future to accelerate implementation of the Platform for Action and to address new and emerging trends;

Decides that the special session shall have a plenary and an ad hoc committee of the whole;

Reaffirms that the special session will be undertaken on the basis of and with full respect for the Platform for Action and that there will be no renegotiation of the existing agreements contained therein;

Decides that the provisional agenda shall include the following items:

Review and appraisal of progress made in implementation in the twelve critical areas of concern of the Platform for Action;

Further actions and initiatives for overcoming obstacles to the implementation of the Platform for Action;

Requests the Secretary-General to prepare, in time for the next session of the preparatory committee in 2000, comprehensive reports on progress made in the implementation of the Platform for Action nationally, regionally and internationally, taking into account all relevant information and inputs available to the United Nations system on the following:

A review and appraisal of the implementation of the Platform for Action based on, inter alia, national action plans, reports submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women by the States parties under article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, replies of Member States to the questionnaire on the implementation of the Platform for Action, statements made by delegations at relevant forums of the United Nations, reports of regional commissions and other entities of the United Nations system and follow-up to recent global United Nations conferences;

Good practices, positive actions, lessons learned, examples of the use of any qualitative and quantitative indicators for measuring progress, successful strategies and promising initiatives for the implementation of the Platform for Action;

Obstacles encountered and strategies for overcoming them;

Further actions and initiatives, within the overall goals of gender equality, development and peace, to accelerate progress in implementation in the twelve critical areas of concern of the Platform for Action beyond 2000, recognizing the need for analytical tools and strategies for implementation, taking into account inputs, as well as comments of Member States on the report of the Secretary-General on the framework for further actions and initiatives,2 and, in this regard, invites Member States to provide inputs and comments thereon;

Also requests the Secretary-General to make available all necessary documentation in a timely manner for the special session, keeping in mind resolutions 52/231 and 53/120;

Encourages the United Nations system to continue to hold discussions with relevant actors of civil society, especially non-governmental organizations, in the exchange of views for the review and appraisal process on the implementation of the Platform for Action, including, wherever available, the use of electronic networking;

Urges Member States and observers to ensure their representation at the special session at a high political level;

Confirms that the special session will be open to the participation of all States Members of the United Nations, members of the specialized agencies and observers, in accordance with the established practice of the General Assembly;

Calls for the participation of associate members of the regional commissions in the special session, subject to the rules of procedure of the General Assembly, and in the preparatory process for the special session, in the same capacity of observer that applied to their participation in the Fourth World Conference on Women;

Encourages Member States to include relevant actors of civil society, especially non-governmental organizations and representatives of women’s organizations, in their national preparatory processes as well as in their delegations to the preparatory committee and the special session;

Emphasizes the important role of non-governmental organizations in implementing the Platform for Action and the need for their active involvement in the preparations for the special session as well as the need to ensure appropriate arrangements for their contributions to the special session;

Decides that non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, as well as the non-governmental organizations that were accredited to the Fourth World Conference on Women, may participate in the special session without creating a precedent for future sessions of the General Assembly;7

Also decides to defer consideration of all the modalities for participation of non-governmental organizations in the special session until the next session of the preparatory committee;

Invites the Bureau of the Commission on the Status of Women, acting as the preparatory committee for the special session, to convene informal open-ended consultations, as appropriate, to consider preparations for the special session;

Recommends that the major portion of the three weeks scheduled for the forty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women in March 2000 be allocated to the Commission acting as the preparatory committee for the special session of the General Assembly.

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