It is Monday March 12, and there is a full house in Conference Room 4 of the UN General Assembly or GA Building, to view the Opening Cermony of CSW62 on livestream. Due to space constraints, each NGO represented at CSW is allowed to have one delegate attend the ceremony seated inside the General Assembly. Our President Sallie Chaballier is there now.
Chair Ambassador of Ireland Nason is addressing the Commission, taking care of procedural matters: the adoption of the agenda and organization of work and the length of statements by member states delegates. Ten minutes allotted, after which the sound engineer will turn off the microphones. Longer statements may be posted online. This is all the usual business, but this time for the first time, the CSW Chair is a woman!
Her opening remarks: she is honoerd to be the first Irish Ambassador, wishing us a hundred thousand welcomes to us all. Special welcome to all the representatives of the passionalte civil society organizations here, who will ensure that these discussions do not remain here in the UN Building. We have had enough of debates which deliver much rhetoric but not a lot of results. We must do better.
Those of us who have attended many CSWs over the years have heard this said before. We agree. We hope that this year, the deliberations and decisions will lead to results and solutions.