Beijing Platform for Action

The Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, China, 1995), at which Ireland participated, addresses, in particular, 12 critical areas of concern to women globally.

The Beijing Platform for Action is an agenda for women’s empowerment. It aims at removing all the obstacles to women’s active participation in all spheres of public and private life through ensuring women a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural and political decision-making. This means that the principle of shared power and responsibility should be established between women and men at home, in the workplace, and in the wider national and international communities.

Equality between women and men is a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice. It is also a necessary and fundamental prerequisite for equality, development and peace. To this end, governments, the international community and civil society, including non-governmental organisations and the private sector, are called upon to take strategic action in the following twelve critical areas of concern identified in the Platform for Action:

• Women and poverty
• Education and training of women
• Women and health
• Violence against women
• Women and armed conflict
• Women and the economy
• Women in power and decision-making
• Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women
• Human rights of women
• Women and the media
• Women and the environment
• The girl-child
  

Reports prepared by Ireland in response to Beijing

The Department of Justice and Equality has published the following reports in relation to these commitments:

• Ireland – Report to the United Nations on the National Plan for Women 2002 on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (PDF – 197KB)
  Ireland’s programme to advance the situation of women across the twelve 
  critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action was presented to the UN in 2002 in the form of the National Plan for Women.
• UN Questionnaire to Governments on the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action – National Report of Ireland 2000 (PDF – 1.5MB)
  This is Ireland’s response to the UN Secretary-General’s questionnaire on implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. It was compiled in the context of the 23rd special session of the 
  UN General Assembly on ‘Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century’, Beijing + 5, which took place at the UN headquarters in New York in June 2000. It adopted a Political Declaration and Outcome document entitled ‘Further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action’.
• National Report of Ireland in Response to UN Questionnaire to Governments on Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (1995) (PDF – 88KB)
• Report of Ireland – Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in the Development, Implementation and Evaluation of National Policies and Programmes with a particular focus on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against the Girl Child (2006) (Microsoft Word – 121KB)
  This was compiled in the context of the 51st session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW51) in 2007, which had as its main theme the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination and Violence against the Girl Child.
• UNECE Questionnaire On The Implementation Of The Beijing Declaration And Platform For Action And Beijing + 5 - Response Of Ireland (PDF - 244KB) 
  This document was prepared in March 2009  in response to a questionnaire from UNECE, the European Regional Body of the United Nations, which is undertaking an overview of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in the context of Beijing+15 which will be the key theme of the 2010 meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
• National Women’s Strategy 2007 - 2016 (PDF - 2.02MB)
  This Strategy honours a commitment made to the social partners and to the United Nations. The United Nations through its Commission on the Status of Women and its 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women actively promotes the development of the role of women in our global society. This National Women’s Strategy links closely with the twelve "areas of concern" in relation to the role of women in the world today which were identified at the UN World Summit for Women in Beijing in 1995.

European Union and Beijing Platform for Action

The EU support of the Beijing Platform for Action was affirmed at the highest political level by heads of government at the European Council Summit in Madrid in December 1995. This visible political support has framed the implementation and follow-up of the Beijing Platform for Action since then and continues to provide the impetus for progress.

Since 1999, the ESPHCA Council has – each year – adopted conclusions on indicators and benchmarks, thus making the annual monitoring process more focused and structured. Sets of quantitative and qualitative indicators have been developed by subsequent presidencies, based on material supplied by member states including Ireland, in some of the 12 critical areas of concern in the Beijing Platform for Action.