Women empowerment and gender experts have converged in Lilongwe to prepare for this year’s global United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting, which is scheduled to take place in New York in the United States of America.

The Malawi Government is hosting the delegates, which include leaders of civil society organisations (CSO), government officials, women living in rural areas and traditional leaders, with financial and technical support from the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment (UN Women).

The 2020 CSW 64 will take place in March and delegates are expressed to direct most of their energies on reviewing the implementation of the Beijing Declaration in the context of inspiring transformative action that will step up the achievement of the Girls Empowerment and Gender Equality (GEWE).

And speaking at the opening of a day-long preparatory meeting at the Capital Hotel in Lilongwe, UN Women Head of Programmes, Yemi Falayajo, described this year’s CSW meet as different because it seeks to step up action through the Generation Equality campaign whose major objective is to amplify women’s voices and action to catalyse greater progress towards GEWE.

Falayajo, therefore, stressed that it is critical for Malawi to highly regard the CSW 64 session and hence prepare to meaningfully participate.

She added that the Generation Equality campaign is about bringing together the next generations of women’s rights activists with the gender equality advocates and visionaries who were instrumental in creating the Beijing Platform for Action more than two decades ago.

In her remarks, the Director of Gender Affairs in the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, Mercy Safarao, said besides preparing for the New York meet, the Lilongwe gathering will review the progress on the CSW 63 resolutions, which include strengthening normative, legal and policy frameworks, among others.

UN Women and the Malawi Government have since assembled women empowerment and gender experts from across the country