The 56th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from Monday, 27 February to Friday, 9 March 2011.

Priority Theme

CSW 56 will focus on "the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges." The theme was introduced in a panel event during CSW 55. 

UN Women, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) convened an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on ‘Enabling rural women's economic empowerment: institutions, opportunities and participation' from 20-23 September 2011 in Accra, Ghana.

The EGM aimed to contribute a fuller understanding of the CSW 56 theme and to assist the Commission in its 2012 deliberations. As outlined in a concept note, the EGM focused on the critical areas, including rural women's strengthened role in agriculture, natural resource management and climate change adaption; their access to resources, technology markets, finances, and employment and income-generating opportunities; as well as institutions and policy which promote gender responsive rural development. The group developed a set of 53 recommendations. 

Find further information here.

WILPF & CSW 56

Since CSW 55, women from around the world convened for the WILPF International Congress in San José, Costa Rica (July 30-August 6, 2011) to reaffirm our position and refocus on work to prevent conflict and insecurity through advancing the rights of all.

WILPF International adopted a statement focusing on the the CSW 56 theme of “the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development, and current challenges”. The statement draws particular attention to cross-cutting issues: participation; land rights and access; indigenous rights; natural resources; food security, and the particular challenges and impacts of disasters, conflict and insecurity on the lives of rural women. It underlines that “rural women are often subject to particular rights’ violations, exclusion, isolation, and poverty, and are acutely affected by natural and man-made disasters including economic crisis, climate change, militarization and conflict”. 

To illustrate issues and their compounding effect on women's enjoyment of peace and security, the WILPF statement highlights cases from our national sections. The featured stories exemplify the complexity and range of challenges facing rural women.

PeaceWomen & CSW

PeaceWomen monitors events and resources specifically related to the women, peace and security agenda. We will share basic documents and reports, outcome documents as well as publicize parallel events.

Review CSW 55 (22 February - 4 March 2011) through the WILPF Summary Report. 

PeaceWomen has monitored CSW sessions 49-55.

For further information on CSW 56, please visit UN Women and the NGO-CSW Website.