Over the years, China has attached great importance to and actively promoted the women's cause, and firmly protected women's rights and interests; adhered to the  employment-first strategy, given greater priority to solving the problem of people's employment, and striven to create more jobs. Through the continuous efforts of the Chinese government and all sectors of society, China has achieved remarkable results in the two aspects of “women's development” and “innovative employment”. As a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC), the World Eco-Design Conference (WEDC) has been invited to submit six written statements in the past two years to make contributions to the relevant UN conferences. The Written Statements for the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) - “Digital Design·Women Empowerment”, and the Written Statements for the 61st session of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD61) - “Advancing Full Employment and Decent Work”, have been included in the UN Digital Library: https://bitly.ws/XRZy.

 

The UN Digital Library includes UN documents, key UN publications series, and landmark collections, such as the Index to Proceedings (ITPs), and Oral History Interviews.

 

To respond to the theme of CSW67, “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”, WEDC addressed “Digital Design·Women Empowerment”.

 

In the past 4 years, WEDC has been in progress to achieving “Digital Design·Women Empowerment” through the Program for Digital Design and Women’s Poverty Alleviation, One Village One Product (OVOP) Program, International Design Education (IDE) Program and UNIDO Eco-Design Leading Talent Training Program (EDLTTP) cooperated with the UN Agencies and universities, to create sustainable productivity and economic value for women, and improve the status of women. The beneficiaries of the programs cover rural women in China, young women in the least developed countries (LDCs), and female workers of government, academia, and private sector of the world as well as the UN agencies. We affirm that design could inspire the potential of women, and women could make design more humanity-centered. 

 

To encompass the theme of CSocD61 “Creating full and productive employment and decent work for all as a way of overcoming inequalities to accelerate the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, WEDC shared the Guangdong example of China’s rural revitalization - Eco-Design Town by written statement.

 

In 2018, the permanent site of WEDC was settled in Conghua District, Guangzhou Municipality of Guangdong Province, China, which has transformed a little underdeveloped mountain village into a brand new Eco-Design Town in just 89 days of ecological restoration. The town has become an industrial cluster area that combines conferencing, incubation for innovation and business, hospitality, cultural tourism by renovations on farmer’s market, school, and factory. Multiple eco-design projects and over 80 enterprises have been signed up to settle in the town, which has driven rural development and tremendous changes, promoted incomes and created jobs for villagers, and also brought them a sense of contentment and happiness. 

 

The two Written Statements have been included in the UN Digital Library as permanent collections, which will provide more ideas and references for women's empowerment, rural revitalization, innovation and entrepreneurship, moving forward to achieving the vision 2030 “Leave No One Behind”. In the future, WEDC will actively participate in the UN’s relevant affairs, take the initiative to disseminate China's proposal of promoting the comprehensive development of women and enhancing global cooperation in advancing women’s cause, constantly push forward fuller and higher-quality employment, tell China's story, convey China's voice, and explain China's characteristics well on the international stage!