CSW68 opened a platform for Womankind and our partners to amplify the importance of a feminist approach in influencing gender financing to build a just and fair economic system that works for all women and girls. 

Our objectives at CSW68 were to put forward our advocacy messages and those of our partners, amplify partners’ work, build relationships, and raise Womankind’s profile as a bold, feminist organisation. Here are the highlights from CSW68: 

• 8 partners attended on our delegation and we coordinated with partners with their own delegations to register a further 8; 

• Together with partners and sector allies, Womankind co-hosted five side events under the AWESOME, CARE and WAVE projects. Across various sessions, we explored gender financing, championed women’s economic rights and sparked crucial discussions around unpaid care work, insecure livelihoods and land rights; 

• The opportunity put forward our collective advocacy messaging and to profile partners’ work and on key topics like valuing care work and the ILO 190 and UN Binding Treaty (to stop corporate abuse) campaigns; 

• Using our platform as a UN-registered organisation with a delegation to enable more of our partners to access CSW. 

• Influencing the list of Agreed Conclusions – this is released at the end of every CSW and recommends how to achieve gender equality around the priority themes. From our progressive and feminist standpoint, we worked to get our messages and those of our partners into it. We did this by: 

• Submitting our key priorities to the UN including calling for a UN Binding Treaty to stop corporate abuse, a new declaration on how States should value care work, and flexible funding for women’s rights organisations; 

• Participating in the Women’s Rights Caucus (a coalition of over 200 progressive, feminist organisations) to respond to the earlier drafts of the text; 

• Building relationships with the UK government delegation so that they would put forward our priorities in the negotiations on the text with other States. 

As a result of this work, Womankind’s messaging on areas like care work and debt relief made it into the Agreed Conclusions. Our new relationships with the UK delegation will enable us to influence future Agreed Conclusions texts. 

Across our work around CSW68, we tackled some of the structural barriers that continue to threaten the realisation of economic rights for millions of women and girls around the world. But we realised the work doesn’t end there. In our statement reacting to the CSW68 outcome, we strongly advocated for a renewed focus and commitment that would advance global economies that work for women and girls.