The Association for Progressive Communication (APC) participated in the 68th edition of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), an intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, where the priority theme was “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”.
From 11 to 22 March 2024, APC’s participation in New York was centred on promoting and sharing its work in the field of human rights, most specifically the rights of women and people of diverse genders and sexualities. The occasion also served to share APC’s current work and focus on digital rights, including WRP’s experience on technology-facilitated, gender-based violence (TFGBV) and disinformation, and LocNet’s experience on community networks and feminist infrastructures. The meet included the promotion of the Feminist Principles of the Internet (FPIs) as a vital framework for women’s rights to interact with digital technologies from diverse perspectives and locations.
Moreover, as part of our coordinated efforts with different civil society organisations (CSOs) and UN agencies to include gender at the heart of the Global Digital Compact (GDC), it became one of our priorities to have multiple stakeholders convene and discuss how to encourage governments’ commitments to advocate a feminist GDC to protect, promote, and respect the rights and choices of women, including their economic agency.
APC’s main focus throughout its participation at CSW68 was shifting the argument of “strengthening of institutions” to questioning current power structures and reconfiguring the priority to place people and justice at the centre. This entails prioritising the needs, experiences and perspectives of individuals, particularly women and girls in all their diversity, while formulating guidelines and plans for development.