WYA maintains a presence at the UN to defend the dignity of the person.

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WYA is an accredited ECOSOC Civil Society Network NGO. WYA can thus access UN grounds, attend meetings, and speak as a civil society representative.

WYA participates in the UN’s 3 major commissions: Commission on Social Development, Commission on the Status of Women, and Commission on Population and Development.

Commission for Social Development

The Commission for Social Development is the body of the Economic and Social Council charged with social development policy. Its primary task is the implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action, which were agreed upon at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen.

Commission on the Status of Women

The Commission on the Status of Women sends recommendations and reports to the Economic and Social Council on women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. Its aim is to promote equality between men and women. The CSW reviews areas of concern in the Platform for Action, which was developed at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Commission on Population and Development

The Commission on Population and Development is an Economic and Social Council body that oversees the implementation of the Programme of Action developed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.

What is a commission?

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations is made up of 10 commissions. These commissions monitor and assess the steps Member States have taken to implement actions underlined in the outcome documents from high-level conferences. The role of the commissions is to ensure that the actions specified in the outcome documents are being followed at the local, national, regional and international levels.

The commissions produce resolutions that are formal expressions of political will. The resolutions interpret and relate to the agenda determined at the original high-level conference. The commissions and their corresponding resolutions are organized around a specific priority theme each year.