The 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is taking place on 11-22 March 2024. The CSW 68 priority theme is “Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective.”
About the event
Date: Fri, 15 March, 2024
Time: 4:30 PM – 6:00 pm
Location: Church Center United Nations 10th Floor
Background
Over 200 million girls and women alive today from 31 countries have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and over 4 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM/C annually. However, even these alarming figures fail to represent the full picture, as they do not take into account countries (particularly in Asia and the Middle East) that do not have national prevalence data on FGM/C. Another report highlights that FGM/C has been reported to occur in 92 countries around the world.
Despite positive development in the field of elimination of FGM/C in the last few decades, the Covid-19 pandemic, insecurity, and humanitarian crises in some countries with high prevalence rates, as well as emerging trends, such as medicalization of FGM/C, threaten to roll back progress. In addition, in real terms, numbers are still rising, largely due to global population growth. This is exacerbated by the critical lack of funds available for the end FGM/C sector.
A UNFPA report suggests that It would take $3.3 billion to reach the high-coverage targets by 2030. This would avert 24.6 million cases at an average cost of $134 each. Yet, according to another report by UNFPA, only $275 million in development assistance will be spent in 31 priority countries between 2020-2030, leaving a large funding gap. The funding needed does not include other countries where FGM/C is known to take place and which have not traditionally been prioritized, including Asia and the Middle East.
With this in mind, over one hundred activists, grassroots organisations, international NGOs, and academics gathered at the Women Deliver 2023 Conference in Kigali, Rwanda to highlight the urgent resourcing need for the end FGM/C sector and launch the Kigali Declaration and the Call for Closing the Funding Gap and Uniting for Action to end FGM/C.
Aim of the Event
The Global Platform for Action to End FGM/C is holding a parallel event at CSW to explore innovative options and call for solutions to close the funding gap. The event objectives will be to:
- Highlight the funding gap with an emphasis on the global nature of FGM/C and the funding needs globally.
- Share new findings on the landscape of FGM/C funding, identify strategic entry points.
- Bring in new stakeholders to commit to funding anti-FGM/C programming, promote dialogue between CSOs, activists and funders and mobilise multi-stakeholder partnerships
- Secure support for a Global Commitment Summit to attract funding to the sector.
