COMMISSION ON STATUS OF WOMEN BEGINS WORK AS PREPARATORY BODY FOR ASSEMBLY'S HIGH-LEVEL REVIEW OF NAIROBI STRATEGIES, BEIJING PLATFORM IMPLEMENTATION

WOM/1037
4 March 1998


The Commission on the Status of Women met this evening as the Preparatory Committee for the General Assembly's high-level review in the year 2000 of the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies and the Beijing Platform for Action. It began its consideration of the mandate entrusted to the Commission by Assembly resolution 52/100, of 12 December 1997, by reviewing the Secretary-General's report on the issue.

In resolution 52/100, the Assembly decided to convene, in the year 2000, a high-level plenary review to appraise and assess progress in the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies and the Beijing Platform for Action. The Assembly requested the Secretary-General to report to the Assembly at its fifty-second session on various options for convening the review.

In his report (document A/52/789), the Secretary-General suggests that the review could be carried out at the start of the fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly -- between 6 and 15 September 2000 -- as part of the regular session or as a special session. Another possibility would be to have it as part of the Commission's forty-fourth session before the fifty-fifth session of the Assembly in the year 2000. He also indicates that a special session of the Assembly in the year 2000 could be held for the review, either from 22 to 26 May or from 5 to 9 June.

Patricia Flor (Germany), the Chairperson of the Commission, said the Commission was beginning a process which would result in recommendations to the Assembly through the Economic and Social Council. Following consultations last week, there was a general agreement on the following points:

-- the format of the high-level Assembly plenary review should be in the form of a special session;

-- the special session could be held for four to five days, following the model of the nineteenth special session on the follow-up to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992); and

-- there would be no programme budget implications for the biennium 1998-1999, and the net requirements for the biennium 2000-2001 would consist of $150,000 for the travel of the least developed countries to attend the special session.

Following the Chairperson's statement, the Preparatory Committee decided to continue discussion of the issue in informal consultations. It will meet again at a date and time to be announced.