2005 marked the tenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) in Beijing, where 184 governments and 2,500 nongovernmental organizations agreed to a Platform for Action to secure women's human rights and to eliminate discrimination and violence from women's public and private lives. Global review and appraisal of the Beijing Platform for Action took place during the 49th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, February 28 to March 11, 2005, with a focus on two themes:

1. Review of progress toward implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, and the outcome documents of Beijing's five-year review.
2. Current challenges and future strategies for the advancement and empowerment of women and girls.

Leading up to the CSW, women’s organizations mobilized at the national, regional and international levels, ensuring the international community's reaffirmation of the Beijing Platform for Action and Beijing + 5, and pressing for further action on commitments made at the FWCW in 1995. They were successful: the world’s governments reaffirmed their commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action at five regional meetings in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, Asia Pacific, and West Asia, and finally, at the CSW itself.

IWHC worked with a number of our partners and colleagues to ensure strong representation of sexual and reproductive health organizations, including youth networks working on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the Beijing + 10 review. For more information about how the CSW unfolded, click on the light gray tabs in the left-hand column of this page.

Click here to access more information on the CSW from the UN Division for the Advancement of Women's website.