Women in STEM: Mind the Gap

Women in STEM: Mind the Gap

March 18, 2022 | 8:00AM to 9:30AM New York EDT

Register here: ngocsw66forum.us2.pathable.com

CoNGO Notes: For information about collaborative work of NGOs on the issues above and related matters, visit the substantive committees related to CoNGO. Visit here for specific information about the NGO Committee on Status of Women/New York, NGO Committee on Status of Women Vienna, and the NGO Committee on Status of Women Geneva.

Public dialogue on the progress of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development

Dear colleagues,

You are cordially invited to an informal public dialogue on the progress of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development (IATF on FFD), in preparation for the 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report. The public dialogue will be held on the 21^st of October (Thursday), 9:00 – 10:30 EDT, virtually via MS Teams.

Representatives from the Secretariat, the five major institutional stakeholders (World Bank Group, IMF, WTO, UNCTAD and UNDP), and other Task Force members will brief Member States and external stakeholders on their work. A short presentation will be followed by an interactive discussion to solicit feedback and input. We welcome the participation of all delegations and all stakeholders in this briefing and look forward to your contributions to the dialogue.

If you are interested in attending the briefing, please click here to register and you will receive a specific calendar invitation for the event.

Background information on the briefing is available on the Task Force website. For further information please contact Mr. Peter Chowla (chowla@un.org), Ms. Poh Lynn Ng (ng6@un.org), and Ms. Jie Wei (weij@un.org).

Kind regards,

Navid Hanif

Director, Financing for Sustainable Development Office, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit congocsd.wordpress.com.

UNCTAD Gender and Development Forum

UNCTAD Gender and Development Forum

Participation:

The two events are open to all member States of UNCTAD and to observers from the public. Speakers will include ministers and practitioners and representatives of civil society, the private sector and academia from all regions of the world. Registration for the Forum should be completed online at https://indico.un.org/event/1000156/.

The two UNCTAD-led events of the Forum will be held with remote participation, with simultaneous interpretation in English, French and Spanish. These events will also be streamed live, in English only. Registration for these events should be completed online as follows:

High-level panel: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gQjtXzMWQ9KnO9zbBl–Nw

Workshop: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BVKquoVASfCy9xqNmKmRbg

High-level panel discussion: Shaping gender-responsive economies and societies – What role for trade?

27 September 2021, 4–6.30 p.m. (CEST)

This high-level panel will be results-oriented. Speakers will share their experiences in dealing with gender and economic issues. They will present the goals achieved and the shortcomings faced during their journeys, whether in policymaking, advocacy, business or research. They will also provide concrete ideas of how the work of UNCTAD with regard to trade and gender may further contribute to the goal of empowering women and creating equal opportunities for all in the current social and economic environment.

Session I: Gender equality and trade policymaking – The role of bilateral, regional and global trade policy initiatives alongside domestic policies

Session II: Essay competition on trade and gender

Session III: Trade as a driver of gender equality in the post-pandemic recovery – Perspectives from civil society, the private sector and academia

Closing: Gender and trade at UNCTAD – Future prospect

Gender and development workshop: Our work makes a difference

28 September 2021, 4–6.30 p.m. (CEST)

This workshop will showcase the impacts of hands-on activities conducted by UNCTAD to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment in the fields of trade and gender, trade facilitation, data and statistics, electronic commerce and entrepreneurship. It will also provide for concrete directions for the future role of UNCTAD in contributing to the goal of empowering women and creating equal opportunities for all, given the current social and economic environment

Session I: UNCTAD capacity-building initiative on trade and gender

Session II: Gender perspectives in trade facilitation reforms

Session III: Better data for gender inclusive trade policy

Session IV: eTrade for Women

Session V: Women’s entrepreneurship

For enquiries related to the programmes, please contact Ms. Simonetta Zarrilli, Chief, Trade, Gender and Development Programme, Division on International Trade and Commodities, email: simonetta.zarrilli@unctad.org. For enquiries related to registration and logistics, please contact gender@unctad.org.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org.

World Youth Skills Day

In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day, to celebrate the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. Since then, World Youth Skills Day events have provided a unique opportunity for dialogue between young people, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, firms, employers’ and workers’ organizations, policymakers and development partners.

World Youth Skills Day 2021 will take place in a challenging context, with the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in the widespread disruption of the TVET sector. While vaccination rollouts offer some hope, TVET still has a long road to recovery, especially in those countries which continue to be overwhelmed by the spread of the disease. Youth skills development will face a range of unfamiliar problems emerging from a crisis where training has been disrupted in an unprecedented manner on a virtually universal scale.

Young people aged 15-24 are particularly exposed to the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic. School and workplace closures are leading to learning and training losses. Major life-cycle transitions are made difficult if not impossible, including graduation from general education or TVET at secondary or tertiary level, residential autonomy, and labour market insertion.

TVET has a key role to play in fostering the resilience of young people. It is crucial for all stakeholders to ensure the continuity of skills development and to introduce training programmes to bridge skills gaps. Solutions need to be reimagined in a way that considers not only the realities of the present, but also the full range of possibilities for the future.

To learn more about how and why the UN commemorates this day, check out un.org/en/observances/world-youth-skills-day.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Intergenerational Solidarity, please email the vice chair at susanneseperson@gmail.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Children’s Rights-NY, please visit childrightsny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN.

Remarkable Women, Powerful Stories

Join Zonta each month to hear a remarkable woman share her achievements and personal story as part of our Remarkable Women, Powerful Stories Leadership Series.

In May, Zonta is pleased to welcome Kendra Sharp, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University (OSU), currently on loan to the U.S. National Science Foundation where she has been serving as the Head of the Office of International Science and Engineering since February 2021.

Register here!

Learn more about Kendra at https://www.zonta.org/RemarkableWomenPowerfulStories.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org.

ASPBAE Asia Pacific Policy Dialogue on Education Financing

Dear ASPBAE Members and Friends,

We cordially invite you to join the ASPBAE Asia Pacific Policy Dialogue on Education Financing which will be held on Monday, 26 April 2021, at 1:00 pm Manila time (Philippine Standard Time).

This is a key Asia Pacific event as part of the Global Action Week for Education (GAWE) held from 26-30 April and the One Billion Voices Campaign, both coordinated by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) and supported by ASPBAE. Each regional network member of GCE is holding an event on a different day of GAWE, and the Asia Pacific event by ASPBAE is the first one to start the week on Monday 26 April.

We hope you can join us in this event and encourage your colleagues to participate as well. There is no registration process required. Join the Zoom Meeting here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86001255005?pwd=M0h2ZVV3ZGY5VG51Zzl5OUZORDBlQT09
Meeting ID: 860 0125 5005; Passcode: 850131

The event will be attended by three senior government officials, one each from Timor Leste, the Philippines and Bangladesh speaking, along with a presentation from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), as well as a presentation from ASPBAE and a youth representative from NCE Nepal. There will be space at the end of the speeches and inputs for a number of questions to the speakers.

Objective:

The objective of the Asia Pacific Regional Dialogue on Education Financing is to encourage governments to mobilise national resources that can ensure inclusive education systems and programmes that prioritise the most marginalised.

Rationale:

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a huge gap between education spending, and what was actually needed to achieve SDG4. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly exacerbated this gap, and has led to a curtailment of funding by donors and governments for the education of its people. More than ever, it is important for governments to step up and protect national education budgets, and even better, to increase them, especially to enable education access to rural and remote communities, people with disabilities, those that are missing out on school, unemployed youth, and those that have no access to online learning opportunities.

This online event is part of the Global Action Week for Education (GAWE), an annual international week of campaigning for improved national education policies and increased national education budgets. The theme of GAWE this year is education financing towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4). GAWE is part of a year-long campaign organised by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) called One Billion Voices.

Rallying Call: ‘Protect Education Budgets: reach the most marginalised’

Main speakers:

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, Chair, Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture
Dr. António Guterres, Vice Minister for Education, Youth and Sport, Timor-Leste
Mr. Md. Mahbub Hossain, Secretary, Secondary and Higher Education Division, Ministry of Education in Bangladesh
GPE presentation: recorded message from Ms Margarita Focas Licht, Chief, Effective Partnerships

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org.

[UN Observance] International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Annually on February 11, the United Nations commemorates the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To learn more about why inclusion and gender equity are important in STEM, and to stay apprised of this year’s events, visit un.org/en/observances/women-and-girls-in-science-day.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org.

STEM