At a Nordic fringe event held at the UN on Friday 5 March, in conjunction with the Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW54) in New York, five Nordic experts presented the results and the practical challenges still facing gender-equality policy since the UN's 4th Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

"Recognise, include and fund women's participation," said Lena Aag, from the Swedish Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation. "The UN's new entity for gender equality will be an important part of this work," she added.

Lena Aag talked about the need to include women's perspectives and to focus on women in areas of conflict in international organizations and negotiations.

The research project Gender and Power has shown that women have gained a foothold in politics in the Nordic countries, but, with the exception of Norway, to a much lesser extent in the business community. Kristín Ástgeirsdóttir from Iceland presented findings from this project.

"Why have women gained access to politics but not to business? Has power shifted from politics to business? Have women focused too much on politics?" asked Ástgeirsdóttir.

In the context of female representation, Ástgeirsdóttir was pleased to announce to the room, packed with an audience with from all over the world, that the Icelandic parliament passed a new bill on Thursday 4 March requiring a quota of at least 40 per cent of women or men in companies with 50 employees or more.

The Nordic ministers for gender equality underlined at the Nordic Council of Ministers' fringe event on 2 March that an equal society requires the absence of gender-based violence. Marius Råkil, Director of Alternative to Violence in Norway, gave examples of how the Nordic countries treat violent men.

Video from the fringe event with the Nordic ministers for gender equality.

"Men must collectively reject men's violence towards women and children. It is not up to women to stop men's violence. Gender equality, and the absence of all types of violence, should be the most important political issue of our time," Råkil told the UN on Friday, which invited, amongst other things, a question from a Ugandan delegate who was interested to hear what could be done to stop violent men in her home country.

Gender and climate change has also been an area of particular focus within Nordic gender equality work in the past year. The reason for this is that women and men influence the environment in different ways, at the same time as the sexes are affected differently by climate change.

"Even in a country with structures for gender mainstreaming it is not easy to implement climate-friendly gender policies," said Päivi Kannisto from the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

Kannisto reminded the audience from around the world about what the Finnish President had said during COP15 in Copenhagen in December 2009; that Finland will work both nationally and internationally to promote gender equality in climate work.

Both of the Nordic fringe events during the UN Commission on the Status of Women's session in New York at the beginning of March were jam-packed. Delegates from all over the world, and in particular many from developing countries, flocked to hear about the work the Nordic countries are doing for gender equality.

Photos from CSW54