Written & Oral Statements

Written Statements

Written statements to CSW may be submitted by NGOs in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on the thematic issues considered by CSW in accordance with Council resolution 1996/31. These statements are submitted months prior to any session in order to allow time for processing and issuance of the statements as official United Nations documents for the Commission.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: 25 October 2013

Instructions

NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC shall submit their written statements from 10 October to 25 October 2013 via CSO-Net. Statements sent by e-mail cannot be accepted.
Written statements should be submitted in one of the official languages of the United Nations: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian or Spanish. Organizations wishing to submit their statement in more than one official language must specify which language version is the original and which other language versions are to be used as references for translation.
Statements by organizations in general consultative status with the Council should not exceed 2,000 words; statements by organizations in special consultative status with the Council should not exceed 1,500 words.
If the statement is supported by another NGO(s) in consultative status with the Council, a note to that effect should be added at the end of the document. The names of the NGOs should be in alphabetical order.
Incomprehensible and/or repetitive text will be deleted.
Footnotes should be avoided.
Avoid abbreviations and acronyms. The rules are very restrictive. For permissible acronyms, please consult the UN Editorial Manual. All others, including the acronym for the Commission on the Status of Women (“CSW”) and for your organization, are not allowed in written statements. When first mentioned, please spell out the full name of the organization or concept and place the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses. For subsequent mentions, you may use the acronym.
The start of a new paragraph should be indicated with a double line break; paragraphs of the statement should not be numbered.
Prepare your statement in Microsoft Word or a similar application for text processing and save it on your PC. If you do not save it in advance, you might lose it later during submission, for example, if your PC loses the connection to the online system.

Recommendations

Strive for clarity; strive for coherence.
Choose brevity for greater advocacy impact.
Use the first sentence to persuade readers that your statement contains what they need to know for the Commission’s session.
Avoid jargon.
Avoid repetition of information.
Use simple sentence structure, ensuring that there is a subject and a verb.
Organize material using the principle of one thought per paragraph; make reading effortless.
Do not bury your key idea in the middle or the end.
Verify references to titles and dates of United Nations events and conferences.

Oral Statements

Sign-up period for requests to make an oral statement: 16 January to 19 February 2014

General discussion: Oral statements may be delivered during the general discussion by a limited number of NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC subject to time availability. Preference will be given to NGOs speaking about the priority theme, on behalf of groups of organizations, caucuses, or coalitions. Instructions about the process will be communicated via e-mail to each NGO representative requesting to make a statement.

Oral statements should not exceed three minutes (that is, about two pages double-spaced using font size 12).

Interactive expert panels: A limited number of NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC will be able to make an oral intervention during the interactive panels. Interventions must be focused on the theme of the panel. Inputs on other issues will not be accommodated. Instructions will be communicated via e-mail to each NGO representative requesting to make an intervention.

Interventions at interactive expert panels should NOT be in the form of prepared statements and NGOs are therefore not required to submit copies of such interventions. These interventions must take the form of comments or questions to the experts on the panels. Interventions are not to exceed three minutes.