Author: Carole Shaw

As we deal with the effects of restrictions and actions to minimise Coronavirus Kelley Burke of Channel 7 News has written an an excellent article on the gendered impacts of the virus and it’s clear links to women’s economic insecurity.

In a summary   ..

Gendered norms mean that women are at much higher risk than men of contracting COVID-19 and of surviving the virus.

Women are more vulnerable to COVID-19 due to their economic insecurity, their over-representation in certain sectors of the economy, their caring responsibilities, and the feminisation of the education and healthcare sectors.

Measures are in place for hand washing, social distancing and self isolation ..“But none of these measures address the gendered nature of pandemics and why the burden of the disease will largely be felt by women. It really has to be at a policy-making level, and it’s the policymakers that need to get into the habit of thinking about the gender differences,” she says.

For full article click here

For the Lancet source article click here

For Amy Haddid Broadsheet Article COVID-19 is not Gender Neutral click here

NGO CSW64 Forum Venues will be closed to the public from 9-20 March due to the coronavirus and potential health risks.

Any Parallel Event organizer or planned attendee will not be able to use or enter any of the venues for events. No exceptions will be made.

The list of NGO CSW64 Forum venues are as follows:

• Church Center for the United Nations (CCUN)
• The Salvation Army 4 W 43rd St.
• Armenian Convention Center

In light of the current concerns regarding coronavirus disease (COVID-19), CSW64 will suspend after one procedural meeting on 9 March. There will be no general discussion. All CSW side events on UN premises and all NGO parallel events have been cancelled.
NGOs with valid annual grounds passes will be able to attend the procedural meeting on 9 March. There will be no issuance of CSW grounds passes and CSW64 confirmation letters are no longer applicable.

We advise organizations to follow the Secretary-General’s strong recommendation that capital-based delegations and other stakeholders refrain from travelling to UN Headquarters. For more information, please see the NGO participation pages of the CSW64 website at https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/ngo-participation

[Source https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw64-2020]

A sad and major update to share about CSW64.

Due to serious concerns about the spread of COVID-19, there was a meeting this morning inside the UNHQ to make a decision about whether or not to hold CSW64. Yesterday there was the first confirmed case of the virus in New York City, and there have been cases elsewhere in the NYC suburban area. Many civil society organizations were advocating over the past few days for the CSW to be postponed, as were a large number of member states. This situation has been rapidly evolving – just on Friday, emails went out saying that the conference would go ahead as planned, so a lot has changed over the weekend.

At this morning’s meeting, there was a discussion for a few hours about what to do, and ultimately, member states decided that the full CSW64 (9-20 March) will be replaced by a one-day procedural meeting on the 9th of March only to adopt the pre-negotiated political declaration and programme of work. The rest of CSW will be cancelled for now, and postponed to a later date (that has not yet been decided). Side events inside the UN and ministerial dialogues will also be cancelled. Tentatively, member states suggested postponing the CSW to sometime in July, but this has not been confirmed and we do not know when we will hear more information about this.

NGO-CSW, the body which coordinates civil society participation at CSW, has also just confirmed to us verbally that all parallel events, Consultation Day, and their reception are cancelled as well.

This means that essentially the entire CSW is cancelled, with the exception of the one day, 9 March, which will only be open to member states and New York-based civil society organizations. Your CSW passes that we obtained for you, therefore, will not be valid for entering the UN anymore.

We are extremely sorry to be sharing this sad news with you all, and had truly hoped that you all could join us at CSW64 next week. Ultimately, safety is the most important thing.

Please feel free to reach out directly with any questions and we would be happy to answer.

https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw64-2020