Building a Coordinated Caribbean Position for CSW65

Hosted by CARICOM and UN Women MCO Caribbean, Ministers with responsibility for Gender Affairs, Parliamentarians, heads of the National Gender Machineries, representatives of civil society and academia begun meeting to define a coordinated position on Caribbean needs and priorities to feed into the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

The Sixty-Fifth Session of the Commission on the Status of Women takes place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, 15 - 26 March 2021. The theme this year is: Women's full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.

With coordination support from the Caribbean Women in Leadership (CIWIL), the University of the West Indies Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit and ParlAmericas, the meeting focusses on ways to increase the presence, voice and influence of women and girls in governance processes in the region, in keeping with commitments made by CARICOM Member States that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and which are signatories to the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Convened 8th February, the two-day Caribbean meeting concludes on Friday 12 February, 2021.

Welcome remarks

• Dr. Hilary Brown, Programme Manager, Culture and Community Development, CARICOM Secretariat
• Lady Anande Trotman-Joseph, President of the CIWiL Regional Board of Directors
• Dr. Tonya Haynes, Interim Head and Coordinator of Graduate Programmes - Institute for Gender and Development Studies, Nita Barrow Unit, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill
• The Honourable Bridgid Annisette-George, Speaker of the House of Representative of Trinidad and Tobago, and Vice-President of ParlAmericas
• Ms. Tonni Brodber, Representative, UN Women Multi-Country Office – Caribbean

Opening address

• Roberta Clarke, Regional Director (ag), UN Women Eastern and Southern Africa

Expert presentation on CSW Negotiations

• Dr. Rosina Wiltshire, Gender and Development Specialist, CIWIL Regional Board Member

Concluding Day

• Keynote address to the Building a Coordinated Caribbean position for CSW65 - Professor Barbara Bailey
  
  
• CARICOM Draft Statement