From Participation to Action: What CSW70 Taught Us - So Much Done, Yet Not Enough
As we reflect on our participation in the 70th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), from March 9-19, we acknowledge that to be present in these high-level rooms at the United Nations Headquarters is a privilege we do not take lightly. As a youth movement dedicated to amplifying the leadership of young people from Global Majority countries, we recognize that our presence is more than an opportunity, it is a responsibility.
To move beyond symbolic participation, and in preparation for the conference, we surveyed our community members – a diverse group consisting of mostly women from various nationalities, backgrounds, and walks of life. Our Policy Team (Sheetal S Joshi, Margherita d’Avella, and Nur Aksamija) reviewed the CSW70 mandate and previous sessions to identify the disconnect between high-level discourse and the daily struggles of women globally. Our analysis was unequivocal: despite decades of meetings, structural barriers to justice and leadership remain. We launched our Policy Brief, outlining a framework to move beyond tokenism toward co-creation and demanding that women, particularly young women, be treated as institutional actors and accountability partners, not just temporary guests in a consultation room.
Our Policy Team Co-Lead, Cynthia Brain LLM, participated in official and side-events, paying attention to the discourses, the language, the commitments and the pulse. The atmosphere was one of “cautious urgency”; while there is a growing formal recognition of youth within multilateral systems, there is a persistent “structural ceiling.” The financing gap remained the elephant in many of the rooms; while global commitments are being made, the investment required to implement them is lagging. There was a palpable tension between progress and reality regarding digital justice tools versus shrinking civic spaces for those who lead on the ground, particularly in conflict-affected regions.
After careful consideration and reflection of the discussions we participated in and our community’s needs, we have identified four critical pillars for our continued advocacy:
1. Institutional accountability remains inconsistent across national contexts, as strong legal frameworks are undermined by weak enforcement, limited financing, and insufficient gender-responsive monitoring mechanisms.
Global frameworks, such as Maputo Protocol and CEDAW, often stall at the border of national investigation – and this was a recurring truth across many rooms and segments. The Chair of CEDAW noted that while reporting mechanisms exist, complaints submitted to treaty bodies often fail to translate into national investigations or policy reform, illustrating a structural weakness in international accountability mechanisms. We see this accountability vacuum most clearly when legal systems are weaponized. Without independent oversight bodies and mandatory implementation budgets, “Global Commitments” remain paper promises that leave women in conflict zones, from Sudan to Myanmar, unprotected.
2. Meaningful youth participation is being formally recognized within multilateral systems, yet remains structurally limited in practice, particularly for young women navigating gendered barriers to access, safety, and decision-making power.
The launch of the Core Principles for Meaningful Youth Participation is a historic milestone. But while we are celebrated as “Youth Representatives” in interactive dialogues, we are still too often treated as a demographic to be consulted rather than as experts to be integrated. Whether it is the lack of physical safety for young women in peace processes or the same-people-loop we observed in panel after panel, the system is still designed to include us as beneficiaries, not as co-designers. We are not “future” leaders; we are ready for institutional authority now.
3. Civil society and youth-decolonization networks remain critical actors in advancing justice and accountability, yet face shrinking civic space, underfunding, and heightened risks, particularly in conflict-affected and authoritarian contexts.
Our discussions with partners from Palestine, the DRC, and Myanmar highlighted a paradox: those doing the most critical decolonization work are the most under-resourced and at risk. We witnessed how regional conflict dynamics intersect with gender justice. The Secretary-General admitted that gender equality is fundamentally a “question of power,” and we felt that power struggle in the ideological contestation over gender terminology. For YTN, decolonization means shifting this power, ensuring that Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and migrant women are not just surviving legal retaliation but leading the peace negotiations.
4. Persistent data gaps continue to obscure the realities of women and girls, undermining evidence-based policymaking and accountability. Where data does exist, it too often remains locked in reports with limited visibility, produced to meet donor requirements rather than to drive decisions. Data collection risks becoming a deliverable, not the change it is meant to enable.
There is a dangerous trend toward “Technological Optimism” that ignores lived reality. While rooms were filled with talk of AI's potential, there was an audible silence regarding the specific data needed to combat digital sexual violence – 98% of deepfake content is pornographic, yet policies remain conceptual. Furthermore, “old age has a woman’s face,” but older women are nearly invisible in current data sets. Data is public infrastructure and it should move away from one-off reports for donors toward disaggregated, life-course data that protects land rights in Mozambique and digital safety in South Africa. Data should not be the end of the conversation; it should be the catalyst for systemic governance reform.
While CSW70 has concluded, the work to decolonize narratives and spaces is a year-round commitment to justice. We are dedicated to ensuring that youth leadership is treated as core governance infrastructure, not an institutional afterthought. To join us in this shift from participation to leadership, we invite you to:
Explore our recommendations for gender-responsive accountability and digital justice.
Support decolonial narratives and advocate for Global Majority leadership in your local and international spaces.
Connect with us: If you are a policymaker, researcher, or fellow advocate, help us move these insights from paper to action.
Authors and Peer Reviewers: Beatriz Carvalho, Joshua Phillips, Cynthia Brain, and Balkis Chaabane.