Guidance note for States parties for the preparation of reports under article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals
I. Revised reporting system
A. Integration of information on the progress made in the achievement of the gender-related Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in treaty-specific documents submitted under article 18 of the Convention
- The present guidance note complements the treaty-specific reporting guidelines issued by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (HRI/GEN/2/Rev.6, chap. V). It should be applied in conjunction with the harmonized guidelines on reporting under the international human rights treaties, including guidelines on a core document and treaty-specific documents (ibid., chap. I).
B. Format of the report to the Committee
2. The format of the report to the Committee should be in accordance with chapter I, section II, of the harmonized guidelines. Paragraphs should be numbered sequentially.
C. Annexes to the report
3. The body of the report should contain relevant information on the legal provisions guaranteeing the rights recognized in the Convention and on measures taken to implement those rights. The report should be comprehensible without reference to any annexes. The Committee allows for the submission of a limited number of annexes, which should be provided in one of the working languages of the Committee (currently, English, French and Spanish) because such annexes are not translated.
* Adopted by the Committee at its seventy-fourth session (21 October–8 November 2019) and revised pursuant to decision 82/III, adopted by the Committee at its eighty -second session
(13 June–1 July 2022).
D. Preparation of the report at the national level
4. States parties should ensure that the report is prepared in a participatory process, as provided for in paragraph 45 of the harmonized guidelines.
II. Periodic reporting obligations
5. Upon ratifying the Convention, a State party undertakes to submit an initial report on the measures that it has adopted to give effect to the rights recognized in the Convention and on the progress made in ensuring their enjoyment within one year after the entry into force of the Convention for that State and periodic reports every four years thereafter and whenever the Committee so requests (art. 18 (1) of the Convention), including through the follow-up procedures relating to its concluding observations.
III. General guidance and requirements for reporting under the Convention
6. The present guidance note applies to: (a) States parties preparing their initial report to the Committee; (b) States from which the Committee has requested a full periodic report; and (c) States wishing to submit a full periodic report.
A. Simplified reporting procedure
7. Under the simplified reporting procedure, the Committee prepares and adopts lists of issues and questions prior to reporting, to be transmitted to States parties prior to the submission of a report. The States parties’ replies to those lists shall constitute their subsequent periodic report under article 18 of the Convention. The procedure was initially made available from 1 January 2015 on a pilot basis (decision 58/II; see A/70/38, part one). Following a suspension of the procedure in November 2016 (decision 65/V; see A/72/38, part two), the Committee decided, at its sixty-ninth session, in March 2018, to reinstate the simplified reporting procedure and to make it available to all States parties, upon their request (decision 69/V; see A/73/38, part three). At its eighty-second session (13 June–1 July 2022), the Committee decided to shift from an opt-in model for the simplified reporting procedure to an opt-out model (decision 82/III). Henceforth, therefore, the simplified reporting procedure will be applied to all States parties that, by 20 September 2022, have not opted out from the simplified reporting procedure and indicated their wish to instead maintain the standard reporting procedure.
B. Exceptional reports
8. The present guidelines do not affect or negate the Committee’s procedure in relation to any exceptional reports that may be requested and which are governed by rule 48.5 of the Committee’s rules of procedure and its decisions on exceptional reports.
C. Content of the report
9. The report to the Committee should be structured so as to follow parts I to IV of the Convention by providing specific information under each article. State parties should take into account the Committee’s general recommendations when preparing the report. Periodic reports (not initial reports) should address the Committee’s previous concluding observations, in particular the concerns, recommendations and follow-up actions, and examine the progress made towards ensuring, and the current situation concerning, the enjoyment of rights under the Convention.
10. Under article 18 (2) of the Convention, reports may indicate factors and difficulties affecting the degree of fulfilment of obligations under the Convention. States parties should provide information regarding the nature, extent of and reasons for any such factors. Where difficulties exist, details should be provided on the steps taken to overcome them.
11. There is a significant synergy between the substantive content of the Convention and the Beijing Platform for Action, and they are therefore mutually reinforcing. The Convention comprises legally binding obligations and sets out the right of women to equality in the civil, political, economic, social, cultural or any other field. The Platform for Action, through its 12 critical areas of concern, provides a policy and programmatic agenda that can be used for the implementation of the Convention. The report should also contain information on how the implementation of those 12 critical areas, as they relate to specific articles of the Convention, is systematically integrated into the State party’s implementation of the Convention’s substantive equality framework.
12. The report should also include information on the implementation of the gender elements across all of the Sustainable Development Goals and regional human rights instruments and on the outcomes of other relevant United Nations conferences, summits and reviews.
13. Where applicable, the report should include information on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and subsequent resolutions on women and peace and security and their outcomes, in line with the Committee’s general recommendation No. 30 (2013) on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post conflict situations.
D. Optional Protocol
14. If the State party has ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol and the Committee has issued views entailing provision of a remedy or expressing any other concern relating to a communication received under that Protocol, the Conventionspecific document should include further information about the remedial steps taken as well as other steps taken to ensure that any circumstance giving rise to the communication does not recur.
15. If the State party has ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol and the Committee has conducted an inquiry under article 8 of the Optional Protocol, the Convention-specific document should include details of any further measures taken in response to an inquiry as well as other measures taken to ensure that the violations giving rise to the inquiry do not recur.
Courtesy the UN CEDAW/C/74/3/Rev.1 Report