Subject: [fem-women2000 500] Angela King Speech at ECOSOC [2000/07/10]
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:57:16 +0900
Seq: 500
United Nations Nations Unies Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS 2 UN Plaza, DC-2-1220, New York, NY 10017 USA E-mail: daw@un.org Internet location: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw ECOSOC Panel Discussion on: Main challenges currently facing the UN system for supporting conference implementation in an integrated and coordinated way Statement by Ms. Angela E.V. King Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women New York 10 July 2000 It is a pleasure to participate in this panel discussion to assess the lessons we have learned from recent world conferences and special sessions and how to utilize them in a crucial area of our activities - taking stock of progress achieved and implementation of outcomes. But it is particularly timely, as we have just completed two five year reviews: Beijing and Copenhagen. It is also useful as some of the lessons learned - thematic as well as process - might well be taken into account in the deliberations of the Millennium Summit and Assembly which the Secretary-General stated will afford an opportunity for reflection and improvement. I think that this is also a good time to ask what are the goals of five- year reviews. It is to keep up the momentum for action and for moving forward based on commitments made and in the case of Beijing, they are gender equality and the empowerment of women. In addition, they provide valuable insights into best practices and achievements and how they can be shared with others; they monitor how Governments have adhered to their commitments and how the UN system and NGOs have undertaken their responsibilities - in fact five-year reviews provide a global overview of advances and steer us towards further action. They also turn a spotlight on the omissions in areas where action has been limited or non-existent and provide invaluable opportunities for all stakeholders to plan and agree further on joint further action. Follow-up reviews also confirm that no single conference outcome can be implemented in isolation: sustainable development, population and development, housing, food security and human rights are highly relevant to the achievement of gender equality; similarly gender equality is a cross-cutting theme crucial to the attainment of these other goals. An excellent example of the interdependence of these themes is the integrated conference follow-up spearheaded by ECOSOC over the last few years. In the case of gender equality, the Member States of ECOSOC have kept priority attention focused through the coordination segment in 1997; the operational segment in 1998 and the high level segment in 1999. To highlight a most important outcome of these initiatives , I should mention that the discussion in 1997 led to Agreed Conclusions 1997/2 which provided Governments and the UN system with an unequivocal definition of "gender mainstreaming" and with a blueprint on how to mainstream gender in all policies and programmes. It set benchmarks for assessing accountability and progress. This was followed by a series of letters from the Secretary-General starting in October 1997 to all heads of agencies in which he set out his expectation that all agencies, funds and programmes would reflect gender issues thus fully underlining the importance of political commitment at the highest level. The following year, the highlight of the discussions was the general agreement that in all operational activities, strategic plans for countries in crisis and country assessments, there had to be a gender dimension as well as a review of the impact of plans and programmes on women and men. Finally, in 1999 at the high level segment on the eradication of poverty: employment and empowerment of women, Member States, in a very interactive and high level debate, drew strong connections between the level of women's education on the one hand, with employment and poverty reduction on the other. Many questions have been raised about the challenges currently facing the United Nations system for supporting conference implementation and outcome. Some of the answers are positive. For example one lesson which we learned from this process was that the review process provided renewed attention and awareness of the theme in question that is, gender equality. Another, was that for the most part, our appraisals yielded entirely valid and objective information. The Beijing review and appraisal document was the result of a questionnaire sent to all Member States. We had a 70% response, and that information together with States Parties reports to CEDAW, inputs from UN agencies, NGO documents and other sources, led us to certain conclusions about achievements and remaining obstacles to women's status and gender equality worldwide. The review also confirmed that there has been progress - not as much as one would wish, but enough to enable us to conclude there has been gains in health, employment, education and in legislation against violence against women. There is however no doubt that in many areas, a great deal of work remains to be done. It was heartening for us to discover that the accuracy and validity of the review's conclusions were borne out by additional research, for example, DESA's The World's Women 2000, UNIFEM's Progress of the World's Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union's Women in Politics 2000. Conclusions about new and continuing challenges facing women were also confirmed and there was agreement that the major issues generating concern were and still continue to be: * globalization and its negative and positive effects on women; * levels of decision-making, particularly representation of women in parliaments; * access to quality education and training for girls; * sexual and reproductive rights and access to adequate services; * access to new information communication technologies to ensure that women were not marginalized; * economic empowerment and equal access to economic resources; * violence against women, particularly domestic violence; * trafficking in women and girls * the HIV/AIDS pandemic; * acknowledgement of direct links between women's participation in all levels of society and positive growth, development and poverty eradication. * involvement and partnership of men and boys in gender issues * eradication of gender stereotyping * time bound targets and data collection disaggregated by sex and age Another challenge is how the UN system responded to the Beijing process. The close collaboration with all agencies concerned was one of the most useful in the whole process. The establishment of the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality as a standing committee of the ACC enabled its members to play a pivotal role in support of the DESA/DAW Secretariat in the follow-up to Beijing and its preparations for the Special Session. The especially valuable contribution which this collaboration facilitated began with inputs from each agency based on their close study of the Beijing Platform for Action and its practical application in transforming their programmes to be gender sensitive. This was reflected in the system-wide medium-term plan for women, where ideas and discussions with and between various agencies generated new thinking and fresh approaches based on the constant interchange of strategies on the most effective ways to implement the mandate and on each agency's comparative advantage. Because of this strong institutional machinery and the framework of the system-wide plan, collaboration on the Beijing +5 substantive preparations was greatly facilitated. For example, advice on such matters as factual accuracy of the draft outcome document in its early stage; on agreed language from other relevant summits and conferences; on an understanding of what were likely to be difficult areas; and on the views of regional groups was invaluable. The availability of technical staff to assist delegates at the PrepCom and informal meetings in collaboration and support of the Division for the Advancement of Women; and the deployment of staff was enormously helpful. The Inter-Agency Committee has also produced solid reports for the special session for example, on good practices in gender mainstreaming; on gender budgeting in the UN system, compiled gender training materials and the role of gender focal points. One major challenge continues to be how to ensure that a gender equality dimension is brought into all discussions. I am happy to note that in last week's discussion here on ICTS, gender was included. We need to redouble our efforts in this regard. For example, we need to ensure that gender is fully discussed in the context of the Millennium Summit, and for example, the new financial architecture. Just as I said Mr. President, that the answers to questions raised have been positive, some have been negative. In this context, I would like to raise the issue of the process itself. Do we need to look at our rules of procedure not only for conferences but also for informal meetings? Do we also need to look at how we arrive at consensus and how binding should it be? Underlying this is the question of how do we ensure that once decisions have been agreed, they are no longer debated and that we move forward with no attempts at roll back. In addition, do we not need to weigh in the balance, the outcomes even though positive on the one hand, with the cost in terms of scarce financial and human resources and the time spent, on the other? I now turn to another important challenge - the question of relationships with NGOs. In his Millennium report the Secretary-General said we must spare no effort to make the United Nations a more effective instrument in the hands of the world' s peoples. One way was to "give full opportunities to non-governmental organizations and other non-state actors to make their indispensable contribution to the Organization's work". We certainly succeeded in realizing this at Beijing+5. There, NGOs enjoyed unprecedented access through an innovative system of transfer passes and they spoke in plenary as they did at Rio+5 and Copenhagen+5 on an exceptional basis. We encouraged their inputs at regional preparatory meetings and promoted their inclusion in delegations. Yet despite all these efforts and despite the fact that there is a core of knowledgeable NGOs based in New York and Geneva who followed the process carefully, the bulk of the new NGOs, formed since the global conferences of the nineties, felt they were not truly a part of the process. We have to recognize that there is a certain level of frustration among NGOs based on their perceived inability to influence the process, on the burdensome registration and accreditation procedures and a lack of knowledge of UN procedures, particularly the difference between General Assembly, ECOSOC and conference procedures. Perhaps we need to improve the two-way flow of communications between us and NGOs to ensure that they understand how the UN works and that we understand their concerns, possibly through ongoing on-line conferences. Many came to Beijing+5 with unrealistic expectations of what was required and of what could be achieved. I think that this frustration could have been alleviated by greater use of regional networks to brief them fully on the requirements for their participation. Improving this process, Mr. President, remains a major challenge. Thanks to DPI we were able to transmit the opening session to five regional hubs around the world - a small but significant attempt to interface with people who would otherwise have been unable to participate in these activities. This interface was extended to hubs throughout the city, thanks to the host country. Special efforts to involve the media - newspapers, television, radio, and dot.com sites- in the issues being discussed at the special session were also made to give world-wide coverage to the UN's activities for women. So, Mr. President, I believe that in the case of Beijing +5 we have fully met the goals which we currently have for mid-term reviews. But what of the future? Mid-term reviews (not necessarily at five-year intervals) to assess overall progress in meeting conference and summit goals are indispensable and should be kept. From our recent experience, I would like to suggest two approaches: First that we focus these mid-term reviews on the national and regional levels delegating much more scope to regional commissions and interregional bodies with the functional intergovernmental body, in our case the Commission on the Status of Women, serving at an enhanced level as the fulcrum for review, appraisal and debate on achievements made and obstacles remaining. In mentioning this we can clearly see how systematically the Commission pursued its mandate to serve as chief monitoring body for the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The sales publication issued this year by the Division for the Advancement of Women entitled "Agreed Conclusions on the Critical Areas of Concern of the Beijing Platform for Action 1996 - 1999" attests to this. Each year, following an in-depth analysis, the Commission reviewed a cluster of related areas of concern and called on governments, UN organizations and civil society to undertake further and more specific actions to meet the Platform's goals. I make special mention of the resolution "women and poverty" of 1996 which took the discussion of the gender dimensions of poverty throughout the UN system to a higher level of consciousness and action. Others too on inheritance of land, women and the girl child, HIV/AIDS, and women and armed conflict supported pioneering actions. The second approach Mr. President, I would urge is that our review and appraisal processes should take place at least one year ahead of the adoption of future actions, platforms or programmes, to give ourselves a chance to really study the wealth of analytical documentation before us on our progress. In the case of both Beijing +5 and Copenhagen +5 some participants particularly those from capitals who may not have received early versions of the appraisal documents had not had the benefit of studying them thoroughly or at all, before steeping themselves in the somewhat painful negotiation process. I do think that achieving a global consensus on achievements and obstacles during an international gathering is important. It focuses attention on the specific theme e.g. gender equality, enhances awareness, promotes the exchange of good practices and enables us to craft a pragmatic and soundly based way forward. So finally, Mr. President, I would propose; * a mid-term review five or six years after, focused at the national and regional level with a global review at the functional commission level, and better coinciding with our planning and budgeting processes; * a global appraisal after ten or twelve years to allow for a better assessment and reflection on impact and real gains and losses. This would be preceded by a review and appraisal the previous year; * staggering conferences between the various themes, that is, in different years to enhance Member States' attention and the substantive and technical servicing by the Secretariat I thank you Mr. President. ***** _________________________________________________________________________ fem-Women2000@jca.apc.org for Women 2000, UN Special Session on Beijing+5 Searcheable Archive http://www.jca.apc.org/fem/news/women2000/index.shtml visit fem-net HomePage for other mailing lists http://www.jca.apc.org/fem