Montevideo, Uruguay/Brussels, Belgium, March 30 (IPS) – On March 19, Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) did something unprecedented in its eight-decade history: it conducted voting. The Trump administration spent two weeks attempting to stall, amend and ultimately block the session’s main outcome document, known as the Agreed Conclusions, casting the sole vote against its adoption. That dissenting vote spoke volumes, because it came from the world’s most powerful government, backed by financial leverage, bilateral access, and a network of anti-rights states and organizations that are making inroads at many levels.
Established in 1946, the CSW brings together 45 states each year to negotiate commitments that, while not legally binding, shape domestic law, set international norms and signal the direction of political will. civil society It plays a key role in this: NGOs The Committee on the Status of Women coordinates thousands of organisations, from large international bodies to grassroots groups, with the aim of ensuring that those most affected by policy have a seat at the table. For several decades, it has been the closest thing the world has to an annual intergovernmental dialogue dedicated to women’s rights.
attack on gender equality
Trump administration reaches CSW70 Withdrawn from UN Women in January and from its executive board in February, citing opposition to what she calls ‘gender ideology’. It introduced eight amendments targeting language on reproductive health. When these were not successful, it attempted to suspend or retract the findings altogether. When that also failed, it voted against adoption and introduced a separate proposal seeking to impose a restrictive definition of gender, effectively attempting to rewrite 30 years of carefully negotiated commitments. Its solution was blocked.
But munich security conference In February, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defined Western civilization as bound together by Christianity, shared ancestry and cultural heritage, an ideological vision that rejects women’s equality, reproductive rights and LGBTQI+ rights not as human rights but as ideological impositions. The financial power of the Trump administration is now the delivery mechanism for this worldview.
defense as a weapon
The immediate material crisis at CSW70 was the collapse of funding. abolition of 90 percent of USAID contracts Wiped out US$60 billion in foreign aid. Instead, America is negotiating bilateral deals with 71 countries under its control. ‘America First’ global health strategyExtending its global sanctions regime not only to civil society organizations but also to recipient governments. This means that any organization receiving US health funding must certify that neither it nor any organization it works with promotes or provides abortion.
Funding will now flow through faith-based groups ultra-conservative Christian organization As such, the Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Watch International stand to benefit, having spent years building networks in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They use the language of family values, parental rights, and national sovereignty to strengthen conservative influence on laws affecting women, LGBTQI+ people, and youth. In many countries, they are already direct access Governments, while progressive organizations are routinely excluded.
With threats intensifying, the UN is signaling a retreat. A proposal under the UN80 cost-cutting initiative UN Women merges with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has alarmed civil society around the world. The stated argument is efficiency, but little overlap Between the two agencies and their combined budgets make up a small portion of total UN spending, this suggests that savings will be modest. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the targeting of these organizations reflects the growing contestation of their rights-based mandates rather than any logic of organizational efficiency.
More than 500 civil society organizations signed open letter UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that, when sexual and reproductive health rights are included in broader mandates, they risk being ‘de-prioritised, under-funded, or politically invisible’. Some states have urged caution but none have yet committed to stopping the merger.
civil society holds the line
In difficult times, Over 4,600 civil society representatives Attended CSW70 and made its presence felt. They took the floor To name structural barriers and demand accountability: youth delegates challenged the normalization of online violence, Pacific Island delegates described how geography denies justice to survivors, and Haitian activists documented the labor exploitation of migrant domestic workers. They all emphasized that when women’s rights organizations are banned or their funding is eliminated, survivors lose their primary route to justice.
NGO CSW Forum Over 750 events were hosted alongside the official sessions. But not everyone could participate. US visa restrictions meant that many women’s rights activists, particularly from the Global South, could not enter the country. This is a pervasive problem that limits the ability of civil society to engage.
New release of Civicus 2026 State of Civil Society Report The documents are exactly what civil society has been up against: institutions created to protect women’s rights under sustained, coordinated attack, their funding cut, their mandates targeted and the human rights values ​​on which they are built reopened for revision. CSW70’s agreed conclusions provide hope, committing states to take action on AI governance, non-discriminatory laws, digital justice, labor rights, legal aid and formal recognition of care workers. But as competition over them became apparent, political will diminished and the anti-rights community grew emboldened. Civil society left CSW70 without losing ground – and that seems to be the measure of success in the regressive times we live in.
Ines M. Pousadella is head of research and analytics at Civicus, co-director and author civicus lens and co-author of Civil Society Status Report. She is also a professor of comparative politics Universidad ORT Uruguay.
Samuel King is a researcher of the Horizon Europe-funded research project ENSURE: Shaping collaboration for a changing world In Civicus: The World Alliance for Civic Participation.
For an interview or further information please contact (email protected)
© Inter Press Service (20260330085422) – All rights reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service
