As a worldwide organisation, Mothers' Union represents a diverse membership. Members and their communities across the world face a huge range of issues including family breakdown, violence, poverty, water shortages, illiteracy, HIV/AIDS and gender inequality. As well as addressing these issues through practical programmes, Mothers' Union lobbies for political change to tackle the root causes.

Within their own countries, Mothers' Union members engage with local and national government on issues affecting their communities. Mothers' Union also holds special consultative status with the United Nations, which entitles us to make a contribution to the UNs work in areas relating to Mothers' Union expertise. Mothers' Union exercises its consultative status every year at the Commission on the Status of Women, held at the United Nations headquarters in New York. We attend this commission in particular because gender inequality compounds many other problems such as illiteracy and the spread of HIV/AIDS, and as Mothers' Union represent millions of women, we have a great deal of knowledge about the impact of womens inequality across the world.

The Commission is dedicated exclusively to advancing the status of women across the world. In the 21st Century, girls and women still face inequality and discrimination because of their gender. For example:

Literacy Rates: There are 774m illiterate adults in the world, 64% of whom are women.

Health inequalities: 50% of adults living with HIV/AIDS worldwide are female; rising to 61% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every day, 1600 women and more than 10,000 newborn babies die due to preventable complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

Income: Although the pay gap has decreased over the past decade, women in the UK earn on average 17.2% less than male counterparts. Worldwide, women hold 28.3% of the legislative, senior official or managerial roles.

Regional breakdown: 41.2% North America; 35% Latin America and Caribbean; 30.6% EU; and 8.6% South Asia.

Political representation: 17.2% of Parliamentarians across the world are women.
Regional breakdown: Americas 19.2%; Europe 19.9%; Sub-Saharan Africa 17.5%; Arab States 9.1%; Asia 16.5%; Pacific 9.4%.

Each year the CSW looks at a different theme and after talks and negotiations between governments and non-governmental organisations, the Commission produces a set of agreed conclusions. Governments are then responsible for implementing these agreements.

CSW 52 (2008) Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women
The 2008 theme addresses how governments should prioritise their spending in order to achieve gender equality.

Budgets are the financial translation of a governments priorities and policies. It is through the budget that a government[s] commitments to gender equality and womens empowerment move from paper promises to practical policies.
Rhonda Sharp, Professor of Economics, University of South Australia

Mothers' Union advocates three ways in which governments should direct their financing to achieve womens equality and empowerment:

1.Financing the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 3 to promote gender equality and empower women through the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education

2.Financing for community owned social education programmes that provide sustainable skills training and challenge womens inequality

3.Financing for gender responsive budgeting (budgeting that is responsive to the different needs of women and men)

Join Mothers' Union in prayer for the Commission for the Status in Women (CSW) at the United Nations.