Closing statement to the Commission on the Status of Women at its 67th session, by Ms. Sima Bahous, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women

[As delivered]  

This year’s Commission on the Status of Women marks a major milestone. Together, you have set the global normative framework on gender equality, technology and innovation that will shape the lives of women and girls right across the world.   

It is your collective commitment, your energy, your vision, your resilience and your patience that has successfully led us to our Agreed Conclusions for CSW67.  You have risen to this moment and demonstrated the promise and strength of the intergovernmental space. Congratulations to you all.   

Today, you have joined forces to reframe technology and innovation as a powerful accelerator for development, for human rights and for women’s rights.  You have contributed to shaping an open, safe, and equal digital future for all women and girls.    

I recognize and thank all those who have steered us so skillfully along the way.   

Thank you to my sister, Her Excellency Mathu Joyini of South Africa for your continued leadership in this second year as Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women.  We are grateful and proud of your unwavering commitment and the positive momentum you have fostered, alongside your able Vice Chairs, H.E. Ms. Antje Leendertse of Germany, who continued to stay with us until these wee hours of the morning Ms. Māris Burbergs of Latvia, and Ms. Chimguundari Navaan-Yunden of Mongolia and all your teams.   

I also thank Her Excellency Ms. Maria del Carmen Squeff of Argentina, the Vice Chair, who led the facilitation process with energy and vision.  Thank you, Ambassador, for your steadfastness into the late hours also to ensure consensual Agreed Conclusions were achieved.   Thank you also to Pilar and Florencia for dedication and your hard work. 

And to all the delegates of CSW67, I thank you for making CSW the landmark intergovernmental meeting on gender equality and women’s rights.  After too many years apart, the promise and potential of the CSW has been revived again through the vibrant in-person dialogues held in these esteemed halls.   

We were joined this year by 181 Member States and observers: 3 heads of state, one head of government, two vice-presidents and 116 ministers. This scale reflects the importance of gender equality for all of us, for the 2030 Agenda, for future generations and for those we represent and serve.  

 It has been inspiring to have the hallways and meeting rooms of the United Nations filled by your energy, your voices, your vision and your chatter. There were some 200 official side events and 700 civil society and NGO parallel events, attended both in person and online.  More than 7000 participants engaged here in New York, not including all those who joined us virtually. You are the spirit and the soul of CSW.  

I would like to especially recognize the creativity, energy, and substantive contributions from across civil society and our youth delegates, including adolescent girls, who have brought a fresh and much needed perspective to this year’s CSW.   

It is the combination of government, civil society, young people from all parts of the world and all walks of life, together with our UN colleagues, that makes CSW so special.    

This reflects the vision of what the United Nations can and must be; the best of what we collectively have to offer to the world. Allow me to take this opportunity to thank my own UN Women team and the conference management teams.  Your dedication and invaluable contributions, starting many months before this session, is what makes our work and our achievements possible.    I thank you and I thank all the conference management teams for their support, professionalism, and their patience with us. 

This year’s Agreed Conclusions are game-changing and bring forward our vision of a more equal and connected world for women and girls in all their diversity.  It is our job, as we leave here today, to translate them into reality.     

The ultimate success of these Agreed Conclusions lies beyond their finalization today, in how we will collectively take them forward.  

This year’s Agreed Conclusions bring us a vision of a more equal world.  As we leave here now, let us bring the might of our combined determination to translate them into reality for all women and girls.  

I thank you.  

Source:unwomen.org