UN Women Civil Society Advisory Group - Post-2015 Agenda

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UN Women Global Civil Society Advisory Group First Meeting

[New York, October 10, 2012] On October 10, 2012, the UN Women Global Civil Society Advisory Group (GCSAG) met for the first time.

Please see the official UN Women brief report from the meeting and below a report back from Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, Executive Director of femLINKpacific and GCSAG member, who attended the meeting.

This is my reflection I shared through Pacific women’s networks and I really feel that one thing is to ensure that the Pacific does become more visible in strategies and activities:

The GCSAG was convened by Mdm Batchelet in NY last week and I also participated in a GEAR and Huairou Commission strategy meeting also.

At the strategy meeting I communicated that I felt it was important to build on the GEAR campaign's recommendations and strategies and:

- progress discussions on how to strengthen the CSW process especially to strengthen access for women's human rights defenders/activists; this is also linked to enhancing women's rights engagement in the post 2015 agenda

- get greater clarity on roles of the GCSAG and how these link to the regional and national advisory groups which are currently being formed

- discuss strategies regarding the various proposals for the 5th World Conference on Women

I was also keen to learn better about how we can enhance a "whole of UN" approach to the gender equality agenda especially at the regional and country level.

The GCSAG meeting was an intensive day of sharing (and thankfully the next one will be 2 days) with a lot of sharing from national and regional contexts with Mdm Batchelet taking time to respond to issues raised by the group members.

I highlighted the current political process in Fiji and efforts stemming from the Fiji Women's Federation to support women's submissions and the broader challenges to women's political participation (regional and national context) as well as highlight the upcoming launch of the Regional Action Plan on WPS.

I also mentioned that we should also consider appropriate and accessible information-communication

I also stressed that there was a greater need to analyze funding for women's rights/gender equality in national budgets (and compare, for example, to military spending).

During lunch Charlotte Bunch led a working session with the UNW civil society team leader about clarifying our "targets and goals" as an advisory group – this is a work in progress and will be discussed more online but clearly CSW reform and enhancing engagement on the post 2015 Agenda is a priority.

Meanwhile UNWomen is launching the Extranet which will be used by all advisory groups and be an online communication platform between meetings.

And at this stage I would also like to encourage Pacific women's movement sisters to also consider roles on regional and national UNW civil society groups as this is an important to engage not only in the early stages of UNW's progress but also not lose sight of the broader aim of the GEAR campaign ie to hold the "whole of the UN system/institutions more accountable to advancing women's rights.