During a ministerial round table discussion held on 12 March 2018, Minister Nyirasafari highlighted Rwanda’s achievement in empowering rural women and girls including though prevention of GBV, access to justice; girls in ICT, social and healthcare. She said that Rwanda’s success story in promoting women and girls was achieved as a result of political will and the Government policies which encourages equal participation between men and women. ‘The high commitment of Rwanda’s leadership through a transformative vision has led to the outstanding achievements and anchored success stories including 64% women’s representation in Parliament, 46.7% of female ministers’-said Minister Nyirasafari _{Honorable Nyirasafari speaking at the CSW62 during a round table discussion} In the health sector, key flagship initiatives that impacted women ‘s lives are family planning and maternal health programmes. According to statistics, the average number of children per woman has reduced from 6.15 to 4 today; which has opened up space for women to participate more in the labor force, reduced maternal mortality from 1071 in 2000 to 210/100,00 in 2014/15 hence contributing to a better health for women. Speaking about Rwandan girls in ICT, Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, said that the implementation of girl’s education policy contributed to putting in place affirmative action’s establishing girls’ friendly environment that contributed to the retention and better performance of young girls while promoting their participation in nontraditional courses like STEM which resulted in having 32% of students in ICT related courses being women. The Minister of Gender and Family Promotion however noted that despite Rwanda’s success story in empowering girls and women, there is still some challenges affecting rural women and girls. These include unpaid care work, restricted mobility and access to economic opportunities, feminized poverty, and gender based violence. To this note, Honorable Nyirasafari pledged the Rwanda’s commitment to advance the socio-economic transformation of Rwandan rural women and girls. ‘As we move forward, the Government of Rwanda is very much committed to continue raising the skills and knowhow for women within key economic sectors such as agro-processing, Technical and Vocational Education & Training; and, we believe that this will help create more opportunities for financial independence and the emancipation of Women and Girls living in rural areas.’- added Minister Nyirasafari The sixty-second session of the <link http: www.unwomen.org en csw>Commission on the Status of Women is being held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 12 to 23 March 2018, focusing on ‘Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.’ The conference is attended by representatives of Member States, UN entities, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from all regions of the world.