The Commission in the Status of Women and Why it Matters

Women in East Java, Indonesia, discuss how they can contribute to peace in their communities. © UN Women-Ryan Brown

By Eileen Travers

9 March 2025 - Ever since former US First Lady and human rights champion Eleanor Roosevelt inspired the first UN sub-commission on the status of women in the 1940s, thousands of women around the world meet at UN Headquarters in New York every March to take the pulse of the planet and make their voices heard.

The annual UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meets to address the widespread inequalities, violence and discrimination women continue to face around the world.

This year, the commission will gather at UN Headquarters in New York from 10 to 21 March.

Here are five things you need to know:

1. 80 years of changemakers

Days after the UN General Assembly’s inaugural meetings in 1946 heard Ms. Roosevelt read an open letter addressed to “the women of the world”, the work of the Commission began.

Ms. Roosevelt had called “on the Governments of the world to encourage women everywhere to take a more active part in national and international affairs and on women who are conscious of their opportunities to come forward and share in the work of peace and reconstruction as they did in war and resistance”.

The UN’s Economic and Social Affairs Commission (ECOSOC) promptly established a sub-commission. Its six members – China, Denmark, Dominican Republic, France, India, Lebanon and Poland – were tasked with assessing “problems relating to the status of women” to advise the UN Commission on Human Rights, a precursor to the UN Human Rights Council.

From the beginning there were calls for action, including prioritising political rights, “since little progress could be made without them”, alongside recommendations for improvements in civil educational, social and economic fields, according to the sub-commission’s first report, which also called for a UN women’s conference “to further the programme”.

By June 1946, it formally became the Commission on the Status of Women, one of ECOSOC’s subsidiary bodies. From 1947 to 1962, CSW focused on setting standards and formulating international conventions to change discriminatory legislation and foster global awareness of women’s issues.

2. Landmark international agreements struck

Dating back to the commission’s early days, its growing membership contributed to some of the most widely agreed upon international conventions in UN history.

Here are just a few.

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948: Helping Ms. Roosevelt, chair of its drafting committee, CSW successfully argued against references to “men” as a synonym for humanity and introduced new, more inclusive language in the final version the General Assembly adopted

• Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 1967: Efforts to consolidate standards on women’s rights led the General Assembly to request CSW to draft it

• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 1979: CSW drafted the legally binding instrument

• Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995: CSW was pivotal in the adoption at the Fourth World Conference on Women of the ground-breaking declaration, which remains a key global policy document on gender equality

3. More countries, more needs

With a growing UN membership and mounting evidence in the 1960s that women were disproportionately affected by poverty, CSW focused on needs in community and rural development, agricultural work, family planning and scientific and technological advances. It also encouraged the UN system to expand technical assistance to further the advancement of women, especially in developing countries.

The UN declared 1975 the International Year of Women and convened the First World Conference on Women, held in Mexico. In 1977, the UN formally recognised International Women’s Day, observed annually on 8 March.

In 2010, after years of negotiations, the General Assembly adopted a resolution consolidating the Organization’s related sections and departments into the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), which continues to collaborate closely with CSW.

4. Tackling new challenges

Annual CSW sessions address and assess emerging issues along with progress and gaps in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action. Member States then agree on further steps to speed progress.

The commission has addressed such challenges as climate change, gender-based violence and ensuring women’s full participating in decision making and in sustainable development strategies.

Each year, CSW sends its negotiated agreed conclusions to ECOSOC for action.

With a view to reaching all women and leaving no one behind, CSW also contributes to the follow-up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to accelerate the realisation of gender equality and the empowerment of women.

5. Walking the talk

Solutions to end women’s poverty are widely recognised, from investing in policies and programmes that address gender inequalities and boosting women’s agency and leadership to closing gender gaps in employment.

Doing so would lift more than 100 million women and girls out of poverty, create 300 million jobs and boost the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 per cent across all regions.

The 2025 session (#CSW69) will convene at UN Headquarters from 10 to 21 March, with its 45 members and thousands of participants from around the world.

The main focus will be on the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which will include an assessment of current challenges that affect its implementation and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and its contribution towards the full realisation of the 2030 Agenda. – UN News