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Beijing + 5: June 5-9, 2000 In New York City
"Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development And Peace For The 21st Century."

WILD's work to implement CEDAW and to promote human rights for women and girls grew out of the United Nations 1995 World Conference on Women. The conference gave rise to a "Platform for Action," which provided a blueprint for our work.

Kate Washburn, WILD Youth Program Director, and Shireen Lee, who established the Youth Caucus at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, are featured on the cover of this magazine after the first World Conference on Women.

From June 5-9, 2000 WILD staff members and Youth Advisory Board members Lisa Garrett, Raha Jorjani and Abigail Kramer attended the special session entitled "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development And Peace For The 21st Century." The special session is also known as "Beijing + 5" because it occurred five years after the 1995 Conference in Beijing. WILD participated in lobbying governments to ensure as strong a Beijing+5 Outcomes Document as possible.

WILD wanted to ensure that there was an opportunity to discuss practical implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action for local communities. To that end, WILD co-hosted a workshop on local implementation of the Platform for Action with the International Union of Local Authorities. This workshop had panelists from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including WILD, and from local governments in several countries. WILD discussed local implementation of CEDAW in San Francisco, and shared insights and best practices from our work. More than 50 people from all over the world participated.

In addition, WILD sat on a panel organized by the National Council for Research on Women on "Bringing the Platform Home." We discussed CEDAW implementation in San Francisco and the work of the Youth Advisory Board.

Kate Washburn, WILD's Young Women's Leadership Program Director, was one of four NGO advisors on the official U.S. government delegation. Her specific role was to advise U.S. government representatives on issues of concern to young women. This participation was especially important, due to the extremely restricted access to UN officials of the larger NGO community.