"Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-
General and Executive Director UN Women introduced the NGO CSW Consultation Day in a speech stating that many of the MDGs had achieved progress but not nearly enough. The relevant data she said is there for governments
to utilise but there must be more involvement for women on every level. "Women
need to be supported because women have the capacity to make change" she said.

Ms. Mlambo Ngcuka stated that what happens during the CSW 2014 is crucial to prepare for our
world Post 2015 Development Agenda stating that our key asks should include:

·        
Recognition
of the dehumanising nature of any violence against women

·        
End child
marriage

·        
Women
should be able to access opportunities and resources e.g land rights, finance

·        
Leadership
and women’s participation in government and decision making

·        
Indicators
and targets for gender/women and girls should be in every goal

She reminded us that
the MDGs don’t finish for another year and so we should be scaling up our
efforts and advocacy.

Now we must create
another mass movement for gender equity and women`s empowerment – BUT we have to also
reach out to men who otherwise will be the problem rather help to provide the
solution.

Advocacy workshop

28 members of our
delegation participated in SI’s first Advocacy Training Workshop. It was a huge success and empowered our delegation to go off with focus to lobby at the CSW 58.

We explored what we
mean by advocacy: how you structure an advocacy campaign and then through a
variety of exercises looking at how to target our advocacy during CSW.

All agreed that the
workshop had been very helpful and plans will be carried forward to include
training before and during CSW 2015.

Reception

All the Soroptimist
International Delegation got together on Sunday night (9th) to network, meet each other, distribute materials and understand meetings and actions
during the following week.

It was also a time to
thank and celebrate the work of our UN representatives in New York by
presenting gifts to Lois, Yoko and Caroline who are leaving the team, and to
welcome in the new members Gloria, Angelina and Khadija our newest recruits!

 

In all a very
successful first day at CSW 2014".