E qual participation of women
and men in decision-making
processes at all levels
eliminate discrimination against women and girls in
the political and public life of the country.
5. The Commission urged States parties to comply
fully with their obligations under the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women and the Optional Protocol thereto
and to take into consideration the concluding
comments, as well as the general recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women.
1. The Commission on the Status of Women reaf-
firmed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action,which emphasized that without the active
participation of women and the incorporation of
women’s perspectives at all levels of decisionmaking, the goals of equality, development and
peace could not be achieved, and that women’s
equal participation was a necessary condition
for women’s and girls’ interests to be taken into
account and was needed in order to strengthen
democracy and promote its proper functioning.
6. The Commission noted that some States parties
had modified their reservations, expressed satisfaction that some reservations had been withdrawn
and urged States parties to limit the extent of any
reservations that they lodged to the Convention, to
formulate any such reservations as precisely and as
narrowly as possible, to ensure that no reservations
were incompatible with the object and purpose
of the Convention, to review their reservations
regularly with a view to withdrawing them and to
withdraw reservations that were contrary to the
object and purpose of the Convention.
2. The Commission reaffirmed the outcome docu-
ment adopted by the General Assembly at its twenty-third special session, paragraph 23 of which
acknowledged that despite general acceptance of
the need for gender balance in decision-making
bodies at all levels, a gap between de jure and
de facto equality had persisted, and that women
continued to be underrepresented at the legislative,
ministerial and sub-ministerial levels, as well as at
the highest levels of the corporate sector and other
economic and social institutions, and drew attention to the obstacles that hindered women’s entry
into decision-making positions.
7. The Commission recalled General Assembly reso-
lution 58/142, of 22 December 2003, on women
and political participation, in paragraph 1 of which
the Assembly urged all stakeholders to develop a
comprehensive set of programmes and policies to
increase women’s participation, especially in political decision-making.
3. The Commission reaffirmed also the commitment
8. The Commission also recalled that its agreed
to the equal participation of women and men in
public life enshrined in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, and in the Convention
on the Political Rights of Women, which stated
that women should be on equal terms with men,
without any discrimination, entitled to vote in all
elections, eligible for election to all publicly elected
bodies established by national law, and entitled
to hold public office and to exercise all public
functions established by national law.
conclusions 1997/2 on women in power and
decision-making recognized the need to accelerate
the implementation of strategies that promoted
gender balance in political decision-making and to
mainstream a gender perspective in all stages of
policy formulation and decision-making.
9. The Commission welcomed the 2005 World
Summit, which had reaffirmed that the full and
effective implementation of the goals and objectives of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action was an essential contribution to achieving
the internationally agreed development goals,
including the Millennium Development Goals, and
had resolved to promote increased representation
of women in Government decision-making bodies,
4. The Commission recalled the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, which stated, inter alia, that States Parties
should take all appropriate measures, including positive measures and temporary special measures, to
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