This weeks guest blogger is Margaret Cook, SI’s International Assistant Programme Director. Here she reflects on her CSW experience and pulls out the best bits of week 2 to share.

It is now two weeks since I returned home and I have had a chance to reflect upon the experience. Some of the highlights of week 2 included seeing Michelle Bachelet (Under Secretary General of UN Women) once again bring her dynamism and clear thinking to a Panel she chaired.

It was focused on
MDG 5 concerning Maternal Health. Maternal mortality is improving in many places but overall there is great need for improvement. She skillfully encouraged various speakers to say exactly what must be said in that gathering!! We heard of programmes to keep girls in school, creative partnerships enabling access to health care for Indian women, the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health launched by the UN, (see www.everywomaneverychild.org), maternal programmes in Nepal and heard about a World Bank initiative funding countries to put definitive plans into practice that will improve maternal health through the lens of gender equality and development.She emphasised frequently that unless the countries listening address poverty, commit resources to enable these changes and have the political will to see things through, then nothing will change. She is very impressive and if anyone can change the woman’s lot she will!!

I took part in a Parallel event which was run by the NGO CSW Violence Against Women subcommittee. This was a very well attended event and was well received. My input was on SI’s work on trafficking. A Thai nun actually thanked SI during the question time for their work in the

SIAM project. It was such a privilege to receive those thanks on your behalf – Soroptimists all over the world. I felt proud to represent you at this event and you can be confident that our work is well known at the UN.

Iran Rooyan is an NGO is based in

Washington
DC. They talked openly in a Parallel Event about the situation in

Iran. The representatives of Iran Rooyan at CSW are resident in US and believe that women must be in full participation in society for

Ira

n to flourish. They are trying to bring help and encouragement to the women of

Iran by ‘telling stories, raising voices and transforming society’. What an inspiring message and surely what we hope meetings like CSW will achieve – transformation. Visit their website, www.iranrooyan.org.  They hope to set up a parallel Farsi website shortly. There is to be legal intervention in Iran of NGOs- they fear that this will mean a freezing of any NGO work there. Their aim is to have a dialogue in place with the women in the country as gender equality remains weak. I felt a sadness listening to these women. Many of us have such great freedoms which we don’t think twice about.

There was much debate about the Agreed Conclusions by the governments and so some of the sessions in the UN were closed to NGOs. It appears that the wording was rather difficult for some governments whilst others wanted to keep stronger wording. Seeing how the debate developed over the fortnight was exciting yet frustrating and it was disappointing that by the end of the second week of CSW, there still had not been any agreement on the conclusions of CSW 55. However, I am pleased to see that draft conclusions have now been published and you can read more about it by visiting the SI news story.

The UN moves slowly but without it, human rights and gender equality would be off many agendas.

There is so much more to tell! There will be a longer account on the website soon, but look at the CSW website or ask any of us who were there. Feel free to contact hq@soroptimistinternational.org with any questions you have, or post comments on our facebook or twitter accounts.