• Editorial
• Appropriate ICTs
• Interview
• NGO Caucus
• Region
• Agenda

Editorial - When will language turn into action?

March 3^rd, 2000 marks the opening of the Prepcom. Since last week, NGOs have been grouping into issues and regional caucuses. Using an already limited document, committees have worked hard to insert words and sentences that will have the best chance of being integrated in order to ensure women’s rights are respected. No one really speaks of progress. Everyone is frustrated with the process of working with language in a document that, in many respects, is weaker than the conventions that have already been adopted. What are we doing here then? Sara Longwe, sometimes referred to as the ‘mother of African feminism’ responds: ‘In this framework that governments have chosen, we are working to add emerging issues, and to ensure that it leads to concrete actions. We in civil society must recharge the political will in order to have action taken. If political will is gone, we must bring it back. If it is here, we must ensure commitment. Where there is concrete commitment, we must bring about actions.’
WomenAction 2000

Appropriate ICTs

WomenAction has prepared a lobbying kit on the issue of Section J. Distributed in English, Spanish and French to government delegates on the afternoon of March 6, the kit contains a NGO assessment of the implementation of Section J, built on regional alternative reports from Europe, Latin America, and Asia, with input from NGOs in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. We have also provided the language modifications agreed upon in the media caucus. NGOs wishing to obtain a copy of the Section J kit can address themselves to WomenAction, and a copy will be loaned to them for photocopy. An electronic version of the English-language assessment document is available on the Web at www.womenaction.org/csw44/altrepeng.html. For a Word or RTF version of the French or Spanish-language report, write to mavic@isiswomen.org.

Interview

UK Women’s National Council Chair Former European Parliament MP Christine Crawley, member of the House of Lords, 15 year veteran of the European Parliament and the Chair of the European Parliament’s Women’s Rights Committee (WNC) has just begun her term as publicly appointed Chair of the WNC. ‘We are based in the heart of government, and more than 200 UK women’s groups are members. Our alternative national report was the product of consultation with all these groups – much of it done through e-mail. When women’s organizations speak with us, they speak directly to the government and hold the government accountable.’

Women’s information and resource centres are closely involved in the WNC. Their expertise in organising, collecting and disseminating information will be valuable in building the databases of expertise of the WNC members – one of the new projects Crawley will introduce during her first term. The key concept of this Institutional Mechanism is to create ‘a way of communicating with women to ensure they are better able to participate in the political processes that are going on in the European Union’.

Democracy and transparency in Eastern Europe

‘Setting up a regional NGO in a part of the world that has a history in communism, requires democracy and transparency.’ Kinga Lohmann of Poland began creating the groundwork for a strong regional women’s network after Beijing, but the real growth started after last year’s CSW. ‘We needed 5 – 7 years after the collapse of communism to understand the need to cooperate. When the transition from communism began, large women’s organizations split into many smaller ones, as women wanted to work on specific areas.’ But last year at the CSW women saw how visible they had become when Karat, the coalition of women’s organizations from 13 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, presented a combined report on institutional mechanisms. ‘Not only were we visible, but people could see we were experts and not government representatives disguised as an NGO.’

Ms Lohmann is committed to empowering women to participate in the Beijing + 5 process, and beyond. Instead of training women in leadership, Karat organizes regular meetings and sends as many delegates as possible to UN B+5 activities, so that they can learn through active participation.

Karat has a co-ordinator and a democratically elected consultative body that consists of women with specific skills in logistics, communications etc. Karat uses e-mail for consultations between meetings. All proposals are sent to the membership for consultation, and the final report as well as financial reports are shared with the whole group. Every new initiative is encouraged.
Lin Pugh, WomenAction 2000

Region - Something more than words...

Gender mechanisms, resources and justice in the 21^st century are the keywords of the NGO uprising in Latin America and the Caribbean, a direct message for the urgent implementation of the commitments agreed upon with women from the international community. The expectation of Latin American NGOs is also that the international community take actions which prioritise the integral and universal implementation of all women’s human rights, especially economic, social and cultural, because they represent the more serious regressions in the majority of countries in the region.

NGO Caucus

The International Criminal Court

Adopted in July 1998, the ICC Statute is a treaty with an unprecedented level of gender integration. It explicitly recognizes for the first time in international law many crimes of sexual and gender violence. In addition, it contains provisions to ensure that crimes against women are respectfully and responsibly investigated and prosecuted. It also included provisions to ensure a presence of women on the Court and among ICC staff at all levels.

The Statute requires 60 ratifications before the Court can be established. Seven countries have ratified the Statute thus far and 94 have signed. We need to ensure that women all over the world learn of the ICC's potential. Come and find out how you can support and advocate for the establishment of the ICC! March 7, 1:15-2:45pm, Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium.

"Building Effective Alliances for the Implementation of the BPA"

At a forum organised on Monday 6th, Jane Kiragu, associate of ABANTU for Development and director of Kangemi Women Empowerment Center in Kenya reported on the work of the Center. She highlighted the relevance of the BPA to local strategies of awareness raising and enabling women to participate at the community level (in issue areas like violence, reproductive rights and the girl child). Ms. Kiragu emphasized the importance of a women’s human rights framework to the local and regional NGO activities in African countries. Margaret Vogt, special assistant to the Assistant Secretary General (UN) stressed the necessity of forging alliances that link grassroots, regional and international NGO activities and highlighted the necessity for grassroots women to be able to participate in peace negotiations in Africa.

Globalization and Women’s Economic Rights: Voices From Around the World

Five years after Beijing, where do women stand in the global economy?

A panel of women shared their experiences of the negative impacts that macroeconomic policies such as structural adjustment and trade and investment liberalization have had on women and their communities. Sandra Carnegie-Douglas, from NAC in Canada, began the discussion by affirming the need to take into account the new economic international order in the follow-up to Beijing. She stressed that economic, social, civil and political rights must be linked and that an Integrated Feminist Analysis must be used in the implementation of the BPFA if gender equity and equality are to be achieved. Each of the panelists stressed how trade and investment liberalization have exacerbated women’s poverty, increased the amount of women in unpaid work, and further created gender inequality between men and women and among women. Monica Aleman, a representative from the Youth Caucus from Nicaragua, described her country’s negative experience with multinational corporations. Genoveva Tisheva from Bulgaria described a study that was recently done showing that privatization in Eastern Europe has had negative impacts for women – in part due to the fact that discrimination, the double burden of work for women, corrupt political and legal structures and other social and political factors are often not recognized or accounted for in the privatization efforts. Recognizing that privatization schemes, including micro-credit, are not the panacea for women and communities in poverty, the panel and the audience explored the macro links to social development, including international labor standards, migrant workers’ rights, the international financial institutions and the WTO. As a final note, Dzodzi Tsikata from Ghana celebrated women’s organizing in Africa to call for development centered economic policies and fair trade – not free trade.

Agenda

Women and Media Caucus
to discuss lobbying strategies around Section J.
March 7, 3.00pm. UNIFEM Conference Room at 304 East 45^th Street, NY. Organized by WomenAction 2000.

National Shadow Reports
Panel from Pakistan, Mexico, USA, Kenya and Philippines.
March 7, 11.00am–1.00pm, Dag Hammerskjold Library, IN bldg.

CONGO Committee on Sustainable Development and CSW
Briefing on female agricultural workers ‘Women Working in the World's Fields,’
March 7, 1:15-2:45pm, 11^th floor, Church Center.