UNGA President releases concept note on gender equality and women’s empowerment

The President of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has released a concept note for the high-level thematic debate on ‘Advancing Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls for a Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda,' that will take place on 6 March 2015.

The main objective is to provide an opportunity for participants to address challenges related to promoting gender equality and empowerment of women and girls as well as to share good practices and experiences focusing on:

1. Measures to achieve gender equality and women’s economic and political empowerment at all levels.


2. Increasing access to and completion of quality education as one of the most effective tools for empowering women and girls.

The opening session will be a commemoration of International Women’s Day and speakers will include Sam K Kutesa, General Assembly President; Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women Executive-Director.

The first panel discussion will address ‘Women's economic and political empowerment, including access to decent work, and control over economic and productive resources and active participation in governance and decision-making.' It will consider questions related to: successful and transformative strategies and policies that advanced women's rights and economic and political empowerment; ways to change social norms, beliefs and practices on gender roles that contribute to under-representation of women in decision-making at all levels; and empowerment of women in the workplace, marketplace and community.

The second panel discussion will address ‘Access to quality education and skills development as tools for empowerment of women and girls.' It will consider questions related to: policies and programmes supporting women's access to decent work; education and training systems that facilitate lifelong learning opportunities for girls and women and measures to increase entrepreneurship; success stories in achieving gender parity in education and further actions necessary to close the remaining gender gap as well as related non-education actions that have increased girls' access to education; and initiatives to combat gender stereotypes in education and training, initiatives to increase representation of girls in male-dominated fields and boys in female-dominated fields, and recommendations to remove gender stereotypes in curricula, textbooks and teacher training.

The closing session will include a presentation of the Chair’s summaries.

The concept note and provisional agenda are available.