Lalaine P. Viado's blog

BPA is a teen-er
By Lalaine P. Viado

The Beijing Platform for Action (BPA) is 15 years old and a global review of the progress of its implementation will be held at the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on 1-12 March 2010 at the UN Headquarters in New York City. The global review will focus on the link between the BPA implementation and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the outcome of which will significantly contribute to the high-level meeting on the MDGs by the General Assembly in September 2010.*

The MDG3 in the Language of Beijing: A Blog Series
by Lalaine P. Viado

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not stand alone goals that sprung up with the new millennium. Particularly MDG3: Gender Equality, this goal is but a chip off the block from the Beijing Platform for Action (BPA) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The BPA was the result of the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 with the strong global backdrop and recognition that women’s rights are human rights in 1993 at the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna Conference). CEDAW, on the other hand, is much older and a treaty binding document signed by 130 countries as early as 1979 and came into force, the fastest among all UN instruments, in 1981. The CEDAW, otherwise known as the international bill of rights for women, was brought to bear by an earlier Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women drafted in 1965 and adopted in 1967.