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 The Commission on the Status of Women enters its final week as government delegates continue their negations and debate on the draft outcome document of agreed conclusions on the theme, “Financing for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.”
As delegates work, United Nations government missions and Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) have sponsored a host of parallel events to raise awareness on concerns and issues pertaining to women and girls. The School Sisters of Notre Dame attended the CSW, attended many of these sessions February 25-29 with a group of 17 sisters, colleagues and students.
The panel discussions, workshops and seminars that they attended provide a wealth of information on an array of topics. NGOs and government representatives presented data and statistics from the latest studies and surveys, compelling first person accounts of triumph over adversity and reports on model aid efforts and best practices.
The NGO influences is a valuable asset to the CSW, which will integrate NGO contributions into its own work, Belgium Ambassador Olivier Belle, CSW chairperson, said during one of the daily NGO briefings.
“We count a lot on the expertise and experience of the NGOs to give more life to the debates,” Ambassador Belle said. “We count on your expertise and experience to help us with the process.”
The School Sisters of Notre Dame has been a registered NGO (non-governmental organization) with the U.N.’s Department of Public Information since 1993. In 1998, SSND received special consultative status with the ECOSOC. School Sisters of Notre Dame actively participate in the work of the United Nations by presenting written and oral testimony to ECOSOC and its commissions, particularly on issues related to the welfare and education of girls and women, economic justice, and sustainable development.
As an NGO, the School Sisters of Notre Dame have a responsibility to promote knowledge of the principles and activities of the United Nations and disseminate information about the United Nations and its work to their constituencies. NGOs like the School Sisters of Notre Dame provide analysis and expertise, serve as early warning mechanisms, and help monitor and implement international agreements.
A small sampling of the sessions attended by the 15 members of the SSND delegation follows:
 Promoting Gender Equality and the MDGs – Progress, Strategies and Finances, provided an opportunity for the release of the first two chapters of the World Bank’s report, “Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand?” The book reveals the country’s progress in meeting the Millennium Develop Goal 3 to “promote gender equality and empower women.”
In her overview, Editor Mayra Buvinic said the book includes examples of best practices of the three main tools that help achieve gender equality: laws, institutions and policies. In discussing social institutions, such as families, Buvinic noted how monetary incentives have been successful in changing behaviors of families. In Mexico, families receive money for sending children to school with greater amounts for girls who are sent to school. In Latin America and Africa, families receive money for taking their children to health centers, and in India parents have money deposited in bank accounts on the contingency that their daughters do not marry before age 18.
“This condition of cash transfers presents a huge incentive to change gender inequality by changing the behaviors of families,” Buvinic said.
A second chapter looks at the state of the world, said editor Andrew Morrison. Four official indicators used to assess progress include enrollment rations, literacy ration, the percentages of women in non-agriculture employment and political involvement of women.
“In no region of the world in 2006-07 were there more than 20 percent of parliamentarians who were women, and in East Asia there was a decrease,” Morrison said.
The World Bank recommends that additional indicators be used in assessing progress on achieving MDG3, including primary education completion rate of boys and girls, mortality rates for children under age five, the percent of 15-19 year olds who are mothers or are pregnant, labor force participation rates for men and woman and wage rations for men and women.
To draw renewed attention to MDG3, the Danish government is initiating a national campaign, said Dorthea Damkjaer, chair of the Development Assistance Committee Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET). Denmark’s “Call to Action” will begin with the delivery of 100 torches to government representatives, private sector leaders and civil society representatives worldwide. The torch recipients will be asked to make an additional commitment to promoting MDG3 more than they already are doing, and those commitments will be collected and presented to the secretary general of the United Nations in September.
“We hope that this will revitalize attention to MDG3,” Damkjaer said.
The Effects of War on Women & Children was a lesson on the heartbreaking consequences of violence and conflict on the innocent. Women from Nepal, Fiji and Iraq candidly shared the strife they faced in their countries.
Zakia Hakki, the first woman judge in Iraq and now an elected member of Iraq’s parliament, was widowed when her husband was killed by the regime of Saddam Hussein. She also was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt four years ago. She gives voice to the Iraqi widows, orphans and street children who have suffered from the conflict in their country.
“We are facing a humanitarian crisis on an unimaginable scale,” Hakki said. “It is overwhelming Iraq. We should not face this crisis alone.”
Emma Tagicakibau, of Fiji, works with peace building and human rights groups in the Pacific. She shared an account from Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, that illustrated how women’s influence in building peace is regularly ignored.
Fed up with years of conflict, Tagicakibau said, the women of the village sought out their men who were fighting in the bush and told them that they had had enough. Just as their husbands and sons were ready to lay down their weapons, official peacekeepers arrived. While the women were influential in prompting the first steps toward peace, they were forgotten and excluded at the formal negotiation table.
“Just as women are used as weapons during conflict, they can be very strong peacemakers. Unless more women are empowered to claim their space on the negotiating table or in parliament, the spirit of Resolution 1325 will remain elusive,” she said in reference to the United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in 2000, which reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations and peace building.
Corporate Social Responsibilities for Economic Empowerment of Women brought together speakers who included the talent development diversity manager for American Express in Japan/Asia Pacific/Australia; an executive of Brazil’s BOVESP, the third largest stock exchange in the world; the head of deposits and marketing of Kiatnakin Bank, Thailand and the special assistant to the executive director of the United Nations Global Compact Office.
Each spoke about best practices within her organization, including BOVESPA’s “Women in Action” program to educate women and create a culture of investment that will include women; American Express’ OPEN program to fund women’s business initiatives, and Kiatnakin Bank’s programs to teach women how to save and budget family finances.
Investing in Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women: Challenges and Opportunities showcased the initiatives made by Project Five-O, a cooperative project of Business & Professional Women International, International Council of Women, International Federation of University Women, Soroptimist International and Zonta International. Those skills and training include sewing in Bangladesh for the garment industry, home economics in Madagascar for restaurant jobs, home economics in the Philippines for nursing home positions, beautician training in India and entrepreneurship in Latvia so that women could se t up businesses with micro credit loans, said Johanne Sorensen, international coordinator of Project Five-O.,
“The purpose is to give uneducated women a chance to learn income-generating skills so they can support their families,” Sorensen said.
Michaela Walsh, founding president of Women’s World Bank, said that there is an urgent need for women to make sure that women have adequate access to resources.
“The time has come to admit that unless we start working together at the design table, we will never see gender equality or a sustainable future,” Sorensen said. “The message that I am trying to convey is that power is unity.”
That power is unity is a central theme to empowering women, said Amanda Ellis, lead specialist for the World Bank’s Group Gender Action Plan.
“Gender equality is smart economics,” Ellis said. “There has been a realization that this is an essential agenda.”
Financing for Gender Equality: What’s Race, Class and Gender Got to Do With it challenged participants in an interactive setting to consider the interlinking problems that women face because of their gender, race, ethnicity, caste, class, national origin or citizenship status, sexual orientation, age, and other factors. Interacting in small groups of 10, participants shared their own experiences or those of other women that illustrated how these forms of marginalization further limit women’s access to resources of development. |
