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WIDE at the 52nd
Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW): Introduction
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WIDE
participated with a large delegation of its members in the 52nd
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on “Financing for gender equality and
the empowerment of women” that was held 25 February – 7 March at the UN in New
York. WIDE tried to influence governments’ positions and the outcomes of
negotiations around the agreed conclusions and proposed resolutions. WIDE also
exchanged thoughts and experiences with many other NGOs among them WIDE’s
international partners, participating in and co-leading a number of the
parallel events and NGOs caucuses. This WIDE newsletter contains three reports
by WIDE member delegates, along with a report on the GEAR Campaign, which also
played a role at the CSW.
Further information
First draft of the agreed
conclusions, a draft by the CSW Bureau as a starting point for the
negotiations: http://62.149.193.10/wide/download/preliminaryconclusions.pdf?id=591
Final draft of the agreed
conclusions: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw52/AC_resolutions/L.8_Advance%20unedited_as%20corrected.pdf
Additional statement made by
the EU delegation on the agreed conclusions: http://62.149.193.10/wide/download/EU%20Statement%20on%20the%20AGREED%20CONCLUSIONS.pdf?id=589
WIDE CSW position paper: http://62.149.193.10/wide/download/CSW%202008_WIDE%20Position%20Paper.pdf?id=579
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WIDE and the CSW 1: Adequate aid through increasing
aid: a condition to achieve gender equality
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By Ana Lydia Fernández-Layos
If one
looks at the number of participants that attended the latest CSW, it seems a
big success. According to unofficial data it seems that 1600 representatives of
civil society organisations were present at the 52nd session of the CSW, 400
more than in 2005 at the Beijing +10 review, making this one of the
highest-attended CSWs ever.
The CSW
proved an important forum for networking, strengthening ties among the feminist
movement, exchanging views and building collective thinking and engaging in a
dialogue with government delegations. However, civil society organisations were
not as successful in influencing the main negotiations taking place. It was a
difficult process to influence, due to the limitations in access to the
negotiations, especially given that in the second and final week of the CSW the
negotiations took place behind close doors where the countries from all over
the world negotiated together with some grouping together as nations and
negotiating from one common position. Also it was difficult to get the latest
relevant updated information on time to be able to give feedback on the
process, although it helped a great deal WIDE representatives were part of some
of the EU member state delegations and that other representatives of the network had
frequent contact with the Spanish government. Moreover, it turned out the
possibility to influence EU member states was limited because they had come up
with a common position in the first days of the CSW, based on negotiations that
had already commenced before the CSW. All these aspects, together with the
general lack of political will from the governments to make concrete
commitments, resulted in somehow sweet and sour agreed conclusions.
The main
demands of the international feminist movement were focused on:
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Achieving concrete governmental commitment to
ensure adequate and sufficient resources for gender equality and the
empowerment of women, with special emphasis on direct financing for
organisations working to promote gender equality;
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The urgent need to guarantee civil society
organisation participation in all national and international processes
promoting gender equality;
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Achieving strong commitment to policy
coherence based on sustainable development that will ensure gender equality in
all contexts;
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Achieving more on the mutual
accountability of all governments, donors and recipients and citizens;
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Making progress with gender responsive
budgeting (mainstreaming gender in all resource allocations), sex disaggregated
data and the development and use of gender indicators in all planning,
monitoring and evaluation processes;
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And the establishment of a strengthened
gender entity within the UN with more political power and resources to ensure
the achievement of gender equality and policy coherence at the international
level.
CSW
outcomes
Some of
the positive results of the 52nd session of the CSW, as the agreed
conclusions reflect, are:
- A call for
increasing investment in gender equality, both through mainstreaming a
gender perspective in resource allocation, and by ensuring the necessary
resources for targeted activities;
- The recognition
of the important role of national machineries for the advancement of women
and of relevant governmental entities in financing gender equality;
- Mentioning the
need to implement actions in order to strengthen institutional frameworks,
accountability mechanisms and capacity-building, in order tosystematically
incorporate gender perspectives into budgetary policies and processes at
all levels;
- Strengthening
the methodologies and tools to monitor the progress in financing gender
equality and gender-sensitive analysis of macroeconomic policies;
- A call for all
stakeholders to make sound economic decisions and ensure that economic
growth and poverty eradication benefit all;
- And lastly the
“recommendation” to address the differential gender impact of trade
policies and increase the focus and impact of development assistance
specifically targeting gender equality and the empowerment of women and
girls.
However,
one of the main disappointments is the vague and weak language used,
“recommending and encouraging” the governments instead of strong commitment
towards financing for gender equality. Moreover, one of the main concerns at
the 52nd session of the CSW was the need to ensure that the most conservative
governments did not put in danger the already achieved previous commitments, a
worry that has been commonly shared in the last years in the context of
different processes within the UN. For instance, some of the governments who
have not ratified the CEDAW (mainly Iran and the US) were against the inclusion
of reference to the CEDAW in the final text and when it was agreed that it
would be included they reaffirmed that they “will dissociate
themselves from those sections of the text that referenced that instrument and
its monitoring body”.
Other very
controversial issues in the negotiations were:
- The focus on reinforcing the need for adequate aid
but without making concrete commitments on increasing aid;
- Not enough use of strong language “ensuring/guaranteeing”
and not just “encouraging/enhancing”;
- Not enough recognition of the role of civil society
organisations as equal partners in development and in promoting gender
equality, and the need to makestrong commitments towards ensuring their participation
in different processes;
- The inclusion of sexual and reproductive rights in
the Millennium Declaration (the US made it clear that they will not
support this). Finally it was agreed that the term “reproductive health”
would be used, with the US precondition that there was international
consensus on not including abortion;
- Conditionality
towards enforcing gender equality based on the human rights framework;
and,
- Making a concrete commitment regarding the creation
of a more strengthened gender UN entity.
Additional
EU statement
The EU delegation did not completely agree
with the agreed conclusions and presented an additional statement remarking that the contributions of
civil society and women’s organisations around the world to gender equality
“have not been rightly recognized and that adequate supporting of their future
work toward gender equality and the empowerment of women has not been
appropriately addressed”. Moreover, they expressed the concern that linking the
commitments made in the agreed conclusions (paragraph 21) to “national
priorities” weakens the agreed conclusions and leaves the door open to
governments to decide upon their own criteria on whether it is necessary or
sufficient to achieve the commitments made.
Our challenges ahead
One of the
main challenges we have as a network is to improve our efforts to influence
negotiations and outcomes by investing more in the coordination of and
preparation for such events at a national, European and international level.
For instance, even though we were able to strengthen dialogue and exchange
information with the Spanish delegation, our capacity to influence their
position at the CSW was limited. It is important with future processes in mind
for women’s organisations to have a
series of preparatory meetings
in advance, and establish a fluent dialogue with governments at a national
level, based on our developed positions, before the negotiations at the
official event start. In order to achieve this, it is crucial for the feminist
movement to count on enough human and financial resources to develop advocacy
and lobby programmes, and to improve our capacity to be able to participate in
all the stages of these processes that can make such a difference to gender
equality and women´s lives. Hence, it is necessary to get adequate and
sufficient funding to fulfil our mission to make a difference in the
advancement of women´s rights.
Ana Lydia Fernández-Layos is
a member of the WIDE Spanish platform.
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WIDE and the CSW 2: The CSW as a tool to influence
governments
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By Plamenka Markova
For the WIDE Bulgarian platform the CSW provided a lot
of useful knowledge, for instance on emerging issues such as “gender
perspective and climate change” or around gender budgeting which is still
unknown in Bulgaria, and participation in some of the side events presented
useful information on setbacks and good practices from different parts of the
world. The CSW also enabled the Bulgarian platform to connect with other NGOs
to share ideas and was a learning opportunity on the CSW and how its outcomes
and documents can be used to lobby our own government.
Bulgaria is not a member of the Commission on the
Status of Women at present and there was no government delegation at the
session. This placed a restriction on us lobbying our government and will make
it a challenge also in the coming years to raise the government’s awareness,
encourage them to participate and do more for gender equality and women’s
empowerment. Tools I think we can use in this context are some of the reports
of the Secretary-General on the theme for this CSW. His first report (document
E/CN.6/2008/2) provides a useful overview of gender perspectives on the six
core areas of action of the UN Monterrey Consensus on Financing for
Development. The report concludes that the failure to secure adequate resources
to fully implement the Beijing Platform for Action constrains the achievement
of gender equality and the empowerment of women and it proposes recommendations
for further action. This conclusion should be underlined in our dialogue with
the Bulgarian government. Another useful report of the Secretary-General
(document E/CN.6/2008/5) assesses the extent to which financing for gender
equality and the empowerment of women is mainstreamed in policies and
programmes at the national level.
The wide-ranging agreed conclusions on "financing
for gender equality and women's empowerment" can be another tool. The
agreed conclusions highlighted the role of national machineries in the
advancement of women and of relevant governmental entities in financing gender
equality. Among others, actions were put forward for strengthening
institutional frameworks, accountability mechanisms, and capacity building in
order to systematically incorporate gender perspectives into budgetary policies
and processes at all levels. The conclusions can serve as the basis for urging
governments to integrate a gender perspective – and increase women's
participation – in the design, implementation and monitoring of economic plans
and strategies in a coordinated manner and across all policy areas, including
in national development, social protection and poverty reduction.
Finally, I was not surprised by the difficulties met
by NGO representatives at the CSW. The UN obviously is not well adapted at the
moment to work with NGOs, to listen to civil society, and it will take time to
change this mentality. Anyway, dialogue with them might in the end be
successful.
Plamenka Markova is the WIDE Steering Group representative of WIDE’s
Bulgarian platform.
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WIDE and the CSW 3: Watered-down agreed
conclusions
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By Kinga Lohmann
This year’s session of the CSW was clearly placed in the context of development
and financing for development. A paradox of the 52nd CSW session, however, was
the fact that the governmental debates did not really focus on the main topic,
i.e. the allocation of financial resources to achieve the goals of gender
equality. The draft of the agreed conclusions that was presented by the Bureau
of the CSW contained just four pages including 13 paragraphs of
recommendations. This was a starting point for the governments' amendment
proposals and negotiations during this two-week session with the aim to come to
a final set of conclusions.
The content of the draft
largely recalls and/or reaffirms the commitments to achieve gender equality and
women's empowerment included in the main UN documents such as the Beijing
Platform for Action, CEDAW, Monterrey Consensus, 2005 World Summit and others
(articles 1-8). It presents the main areas of concern (articles 9-10) and lists
the recommendations (articles 11-13) based on the above mentioned documents.
The draft clearly noted that these global commitments have not yet been
implemented, and invites different stakeholders to take specific actions
focusing on financing for gender equality and women's empowerment.
Financing for gender equality, especially
financing for the main actors – women's NGOs – who
contribute the most to ensure gender equality in Eastern Europe, is a crucial
issue for many women’s human rights organisations. This is particularly true
for small NGOs, which were severely affected by the lack of available funds for
their activities and advocacy during the last few years in this part of Europe.
Thus, the key recommendation of the draft was for them article 11 u: “Ensure that direct funding goes to women's
organizations to advance their autonomy and sustainability, and increase
support for women's funds which provide small grants to women initiatives”. The
European Women's Caucus’ amendments to the draft agreed conclusions made this
article more specific and adequate by adding: “sustainable
core funding” and “including
small NGOs and those at the grass root level” who should be
considered as those who were affected the most by the current trend to provide
big grants which practically exclude small NGOs.
Unfortunately, government representatives,
particularly those of the EU member states present at the 52nd CSW session were
not open to the NGOs’ lobbying and did not have the will to propose more
concrete targets and mechanisms. So, the recommendation on financing for NGOs
and networks was totally watered-down, considerably weakened and will not
contribute to the sustainability of women's NGOs. From the final draft of the
adopted agreed conclusions, article 21 ll: “Create and enhance a supportive
environment for the mobilization of resources by non-governmental
organizations, particularly women's organizations and networks, to enable them
to increase their effectiveness and to contribute to gender equality and the
empowerment of women, including through assisting in the implementation of the
Platform for Action and participating in policy processes and programme
delivery”.
While the governmental
negotiations and outcome document were quite disappointing, at the same the
session was a great opportunity for meeting and strategising with other women.
An important meeting was initiated by IWRAW (International Women's Rights
Action Watch) Asia Pacific to discuss with regional women’s networks building
an alliance for exploring ways to develop and strengthen cross-regional
advocacy for women's rights within the framework of the UN CEDAW. This was
meant to be the first step towards building a global partnership in executing
women's rights worldwide through the UN Human Rights system.
Kinga Lohmann is WIDE’s steering group representative of the Karat Coalition –
WIDE’s regional platform.
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GEAR Campaign
update: Women unite to push for a UN that really works for all women
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By Gea Meijers
During the
52nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) women’s
organisations, networks and other civil society groups came together to lobby
on the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) recommendations that demand
that the United Nations (UN) machinery is strengthened so that it can deliver
much better with member states on commitments made on women’s rights.
Organisations and networks also strategised on what we can do in our regions
and globally in the coming months to keep lobbying our governments.
Public
launch of the GEAR campaign
In the
first week of the CSW the civil society GEAR campaign was publicly launched and
organisations that took part in one of the most-attended CSWs ever were
informed about the campaign and its recommendations. This resulted in a very
strong push by women’s organisations from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin
America towards their governments to include the recommendations in the agreed
conclusions. WIDE was part of these events as regional focal point of the
European Working Group coordinating the GEAR efforts in Europe.
The agreed
conclusions of the CSW, which were finalised in the early morning hours of Saturday
8 March, incorporated several of the key demands of the GEAR Campaign, though
they were not fully incorporated. And the overall commitments were weak with
regard to financing for gender equality, with no concrete targets or timetables
and no strong mechanisms for effective tracking or monitoring of financial
resources spent on gender equality. The conclusions noted “under-resourcing in
the area of gender equality in the UN system” and stressed “the need for more
effective tracking of resources… spent on enhancing gender equality…”
(paragraph 19). In addition, the agreed conclusions called for the
strengthening of the UN system both through more effective gender mainstreaming
and in terms of “enhancing its capacity to effectively assist States upon request…on
gender equality and women’s empowerment…and to make adequate and reliable human
and financial resources available” (paragraph 21 kk).
In the
national statements that countries delivered during the CSW, over 40 countries
spoke of the need to strengthen the UN’s institutional mechanisms on gender
equality and called for a consolidated women’s entity led by an Under Secretary
General and with an extensive country presence. The GEAR Campaign statement has
already been undersigned by more than 260 organisations and the statement is
available for more organisations to sign.
Strategising
GEAR
The global GEAR strategy meeting held just
before the CSW, organised by Women’s Environment and Development Organization
(WEDO) and Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), provided a good space
to share information about discussions within UN member states around the “one”
UN reform process. Thoughts were also exchanged on ongoing strategising in the
context of the GEAR Campaign. Regional focal points were formally established.
In addition an initial research paper prepared by Aruna Rao, director of Gender
at Work, was discussed. The discussion showed the richness of thought among
organisations and networks working on gender equality regarding the weaknesses of
the current UN machinery for women’s rights, and what actions are needed to
improve the situation. The paper expressed a common understanding among
organisations of problems, needs and solutions. In the discussion following the
presentation of the paper many good points were raised. It was suggested for
example that we should not go to deep into the technical details of what we
want. The UN has specific regulations and structural rules for entities,
departments, etc. and thus the UN should take a lead in translating our demands
in the proper technical language.
GEAR
European Working Group
The
European Working Group for the GEAR campaign has continued since its launch in
the spring 2007 to lobby European governments and coordinate actions in Europe.
WIDE together with other networks and organisations in Europe has asked the EU
to keep politically supporting the GEAR recommendations and to increase
financial resources for entities in the UN and for civil society organisations
that are specifically devoted to women’s empowerment and gender equality. In
the beginning of April members of the European Working Group will meet to
discuss our strategies for the coming period. Organisations and networks that
want to take part actively in the collaborative work in Europe are invited to
join our efforts.
Further
information
European Working Group
For further information and
stating interest to be involved, please contact Gea Meijers, gea[at]wide-network.org
Current member organisations are: ACTSA, BGRF/WIDE Bulgarian platform,
IGPN, European Women’s Lobby, OXFAM/novib, WIDE, WOMANKIND and GADnetwork
UK
Global
Gear Statement
To read the GEAR statement,
go to: http://www.wedo.org/library.aspx?ResourceID=244
And to undersign the
statement, write to: gearcampaign[at]gmail.com
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WIDE regional
platform KARAT: “Fair Play – always in fashion”
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By Joanna Szabunko
KARAT, WIDE’s regional platform in Central and Eastern Europe and the
Commonwealth of Independent States, has published a new report
‘”Fair Play – always in fashion. Consumers’ awareness and working conditions of
women in sportswear industry”. The report is part of the project “Fair Play in
sporting goods production”. In the past year KARAT has been implementing the
project that is aimed at improving working conditions in factories
manufacturing sporting goods.
The main project activities include
monitoring working conditions with factories, advocacy and lobbying directed at
sports companies and sports institutions (mainly the International Olympic
Committee) and above all, awareness raising (education activities, press work
and campaigns). This project is a continuation of KARAT’s cooperation
with the Clean Clothes Campaign and it is implemented together with NGOs from
Austria (Sudwind Agentur) and Germany (Inkota).
The year 2008 will be a culmination of activities linked to major sport events: the
European football championships (EURO 2008) taking place in Austria and
Switzerland in June, and the Olympic Games held in Beijing in August. All
project partners support in their activities the PlayFair2008 Campaign that urges companies, sports
institutions, fans and consumers to take inspiration from the spirit of the Olympics and
act to
eliminate the exploitation and abuse of workers in
the global sporting goods industry and to ensure that the principle of fair play
can be extended to the workplace.
Women and
fair play
Women
constitute the majority of garment industry workers worldwide (including sports
wear) as well as the majority of garment industry consumers. The project
contributes to improving of the workers’ situation by addressing and linking
both of these groups: improving on the one hand poor working conditions of
women workers in sportswear production, and on the other hand raising
consumers’ awareness and increasing their commitment towards improving these
conditions. This is a novel approach in Poland,
in Central and Eastern Europe and for KARAT.
The working
conditions of women in the garment industry are an important issue in Central
and Eastern Europe where garment, including sportswear, production is still an
important industry. For several years the KARAT Secretariat and KARAT’s member
organisations in Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia have been monitoring and
campaigning for the improvement of working conditions of women in clothes
factories. Currently, the situation is changing in some of the Central and Eastern
European countries that have joined the EU. More and more foreign companies
with whom garment factories have been mainly dealing with up until now are more
and more moving their orders to countries where the labour costs are even
cheaper and labour conditions worse, leaving garment factories in Central and
Eastern Europe without orders. This trend has a significant impact on women
employed in the industry. At the same time consumption in eastern EU member
states is growing and the role of consumers is becoming more and more
important. Involving consumers in campaigns towards the improvement of the
workers’ situation has proved to be the best solution implemented by
organisations in other countries (for example in the context of the Clean
Clothes Campaign) and therefore it is now being introduced also with this
project.
KARAT’s
focus with the project is not only on the situation in Poland but on the
broader context of globalisation, on development issues such as working
conditions in developing countries, Corporate Social Responsibility and
conscious consumption, and making more visible the complex interdependence in
which we are all involved and on which we can have an impact and of which we
should be conscious.
New report
The new publication “Fair Play –
always in fashion. Consumers’ awareness and working conditions of women in
sportswear industry” is a result of an analysis of available data and
publications as well as interviews with producers, workers and consumers,
unionists and sportswear market specialists. With the publication we are trying
to show how the existence of Polish producers is contingent on the trends in
the global clothing industry (transferring production to Asian countries), what
is the situation of Polish seamstresses, how their situation depends on the
working conditions and standards in Asian factories and, finally, how improving
the workers’ situation depends on consumers in Poland and elsewhere making
informed purchase decisions and demanding that clothes are produced with the
noble sporting fair play principle to be observed also on the work floor with
respect to workers employed in sportswear manufacturing. We have been
particularly interested in the impact all these phenomena have on working
conditions in sportswear manufacturing where mainly women are employed.
