Update on President of General Assembly’s High Level Events, including CSO briefing, Thursday 6 February No 1 -- The Contributions of Women, the Young and Civil Society to the Post-2015 Development Agenda

The President of the General Assembly John Ashe hosted a briefing on Thursday 6 February for CSOs on the three high level events and the three thematic debates that he will convene in 2014 as a contribution to the elaboration of the post-2015 development agenda.

The list of events (with dates) is available along with the concept papers.

No 1 High-Level Event of the General Assembly The Contributions of Women, the Young and Civil Society to the Post-2015 Development Agenda, 6-7 of March, 2014

This High-Level Event will consist of an opening plenary, interactive, multi‐stakeholder panel discussions and a closing plenary. A President’s summary will be issued at its conclusion, which will be made available to the members of both the Open Working Group (OWG-8) on Sustainable Development Goals and of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing.

During the briefing the President of the General Assembly stated that women have the worst access to water, food, fields and finance: they have few opportunities and little hope. This must be addressed in post-2015. The marginalization of groups in societies runs counter to the concept of sustainability. At the High-Level Event we will examine the capacity of women, the young and CSO to contribute to SDG agenda and discuss how all three can best be included in its outcomes. Development processes must become more inclusive and informative.

See also: https://www.un.org/en/ga/president/68/settingthestage/2wycs.shtml

Nominated Civil Society Speakers

The UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS) has been asked to solicit nominations for civil society speakers for this event and has proposed the following nominations from the Women’s Major Group:

Speakers

1          Nebila Abdulmelik, FEMNET, based in Africa  
2          Amina Doherty, The Young Feminist Fund, based in Carribean

Alternates
1          Esther Mwauramuiri, GROOTS, based in Africa
2          Eni Lestari, International Migrants Alliance, based in Asia

Inputs into the process

The Gender Advisor of the President of the General Assembly (PGA), Marie-Elena John, invites replies to the guiding questions around which inputs could be framed for the High-Level Event on Women, the Young and Civil Society, March 6-7.  A web link has been posted on the PGA's site: http://www.un.org/en/ga/president/68/settingthestage/2wycs_inputs.asp

See also the key issues to be discussed. 

The deadline for inputs for this event is 28 February 2014.

This article was based on a report from Amy Boldosser-Boesch, Family Care International