“CSW60 is the first test of our resolve” — UN Women Executive Director

The sixtieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 14 to 24 March 2016.

Speech by UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the opening of the 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women on 14 March, 2016

Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, H.E. Mr. Antonio de Aguiar Patriota,
President of the General Assembly,
Secretary-General of the UN,
Vice President of ECOSOC,
Ministers,
Women and civil society representatives,
Representatives of the Youth CSW,
Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.

This 60^th Commission on the Status of Women is the first CSW of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Our theme is women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development. Because of the hard work by many of you in this room and beyond, the Sustainable Development Goals include gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls as a centrepiece, with enabling targets threaded throughout all the other goals, making gender systematically integrated into the implementation of the whole Agenda for Sustainable Development.This Commission is the largest and most critical intergovernmental forum, with diverse women’s voices that can influence the road to 2030.