Distinguished participants,

At the NGO Forum in Beijing, we said, “All Issues are women’s issues” and “Look at the world through women’s eyes”. For 25 years, the feminist and women’s movements have mainstreamed action in UN processes: Habitat, climate change, the SDGs, and the human rights council. We have used digital tools we did not have in 1995 to organize marches in the streets and express protests in the MeToo movement.

We thus welcome the statements made by many delegates —including Mexico and France— acknowledging that civil society is the heart and soul of B+25. It is especially heartening to hear that delegates from Thailand and the EU will work to bring BPfA and CEDAW closer together because that is is also our goal.

In preparation for consultations with governments and the Global Gender Equality Forum we will partner with the NGO CSWs, international NGOs, indigenous and youth groups- in all their diversity —to mobilize civil society around NGO parallel reports.

Why don’t we call these shadow reports? Besides holding governments’ feet to the fire, we want to praise and raise governments and what we— in the feminist and women’s movements have achieved —so that after B+25, we have a Treasure Chest of innovative solutions for the next decade.

We also announce here— two virtual online books, one to be written by those who attended the UN FWCW to contribute your stories, photos and memories.  Chapters in this Memories book will be the 12 critical areas of concern. We invite you —whether in government or civil society—who were in Beijing to contribute to this Memories book.

The second book will be written by culture makers – young women and men artists—musicians, poets, filmmakers—who will choose one of the critical areas of concern in the BPfA to tell us about their issues.

With a shrinking space for NGOs and backlash against the human rights agenda, we want to use 2020 to strengthen the relationship between all critical social movements promoting gender equality and the UN. That is why we have joined a 2020 coalition on UN reform that includes B+25.

Finally—we invite you to help us with your financial and political support!

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For the past 15 years, I have been the main UN representative for the International Alliance of Women based out of New York. I joined the IAW because I believed in its mission—to uphold women’s human rights and work for equality, development and peace. We are a network of hundreds of networks, working in English and French, covering the globe in all regions and we have been mobilizing women for a very long time.  IAW was founded in 1902 during the turbulent years of the suffragist movement and the early years of the League of Nations. IAW gained its general consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council as one of the first organizations to be granted this status in 1947. That accreditation was an important recognition of our mission. Remember that when the UN Charter was signed in 1945, only 47 countries guaranteed women the right to vote. There was no national legislation banning child marriage. Ministries of women’s affairs and gender equality did not exist.

Through the years, I have witnessed how women’s leadership and expertise can help influence the UN. Let me make a general observation about what I have learned. Many NGOs think that if you want to influence the UN, the best place to do that is in New York, Geneva and Vienna. From my experience, the regional UN economic and social commissions are increasingly where major political, social and financial decisions are made. ESCAP, ECLAC, ESCWA, and the ECE often regionalize global consensus policy documents according to their own priorities. We have a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but the Africa region also has its own African Charter on human rights that outlines how that document applies to regional realities. That is why I fully endorse the idea that NGOs should work more with ESCAP and other UN bodies at the regional level.

In addition, the UN has a strong presence in many other countries which means that NGOs need to be there as well. The IAW has representatives who are assigned to the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, UNESCO in Paris, the UN Environment Program in Nairobi and the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

During the world conferences on social and economic development in the 1990’s all centers of the UN were engaged in all countries. In New York, the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/NY was proud to be a part of CoNGO when the substantive committees in New York, Geneva, and Vienna joined together to plan an NGO Forum at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. That historic gathering of more than 50,000 women and men, girls and boys, produced the Beijing Platform for Action with 12 critical areas of concern. These covered the girl-child, political, economic, social and cultural rights, the media, health and education.

The feminist and women’s movements at that time gave governments the political momentum and expertise it needed to arrive at a global consensus. The regional networks were critical in achieving consensus on this document agreed to by 189 countries. At one regional preparatory meeting for the Arab/MENA region held in Amman, I saw government delegates had two documents they used in negotiations—a regional NGO document and the UN one. In this region, one of the co-leaders was the Pan Pacific Southeast Asia Women’s Association, an NGO who has helped bring us together, today. Thank you to Thanpuying Sumalee for her contribution to our process.

More recently, I have served on behalf of the IAW as chair of the NGO CSW/New York. Like our sister committees, we help to create open, democratic spaces for civil society, interacting and contributing to the UN. This includes more than so-called “women’s meetings” and extends to events of the Human Rights Council as well as the High Level Political Forum that will review the UN Sustainable Development Goals this July in New York.

Our activities at the UN are particularly intense during the annual meetings of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Last year, we scheduled more than 400 side events so that around 6000 NGOs could speak, network, and strategize around the UN CSW’s theme: “Women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work”. The Final Outcome document was the result of intense lobbying so that advances were made.  Governments agreed that women’s economic empowerment contributes to a more diverse, rich leadership in all sectors, including in rural communities and the private sector. We also asserted that without women’s active participation and leadership can help boost the GDP and that attaining the SDGs will not be possible without gender equality.

I have shared these experiences to give you a glimpse into how partnerships with the UN can work from the point of view of civil society. But based on my personal experiences, let me also tell you how this relationship might look from inside the UN.

In 1979 I moved from New York to Bangkok to work for Unicef as a Social Development officer affiliated with an ESCAP economic planning institute. It was my first UN assignment—one that was a dream come true. My job as an anthropologist was to help the regional office for Southeast Asia support our projects for women and children—doing evaluations, social science training, and contributing what I knew about women’s leadership from academic research. That experience changed my life and how I understood the United Nations.  Here’s why.

I travelled to some of the most remote, poverty-stricken regions of Southeast Asia and Pakistan where I found the UN doing some of its most important work to lift women out of poverty. In the early 1980’s I evaluated an obscure Bangladeshi NGO known as the Grameen Bank. Back then, it was a small project begun by Muhammed Yunnis, a dynamic leader with a humble appearance and mild manner. He wanted to see if banks could give women credit directly, thus circumventing expensive middlemen. The problem was that few women owned their land or homes because these were registered mostly in the names of their husbands or fathers. To sign their papers, they often used their thumbprints for identification because most of them could not read or write. Nevertheless, repayments were so high that the reputation of the Grameen bank reached far and wide.

Fortunately, Unicef encouraged Yunnis and supported this project in its early stages. I think you know the rest of this story. Yunnis eventually won the Nobel Prize for this work and the idea of micro-credit has changed banking around the world.

What did I learn from that experience? At its best, the UN nurtures innovative ideas and gives them a chance to be shared with the rest of the world. Although it may not always succeed, the UN can take risks with new ideas when governments or private donors may be reluctant to act. Once inside the UN system, the seeds of innovation can be shared across cultural and language boundaries and grow before the eyes of a world community. I don’t know of any other institution where this can happen at such a rapid speed with a global impact.

This brings us to my final thought about NGO/UN partnerships. The UN is fascinating because it is like a global university where all stakeholders –governments, the private sector, UN diplomats and staff, as well as universities, and NGOs — are teachers and students at the same time. Furthermore, this happens in small communities, at national and regional levels as well as at UN world conferences. We support each other in many ways—sharing human, financial and intellectual resources. Through our partnerships, we collectively add to a wealth of global knowledge that is a legacy for the next generation.

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“The empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of women’s social, economic and political status is essential for the achievement of both transparent and accountable government and administration and sustainable development in all areas of life.” Our argument is pretty much the same today and the results are not much different.

For years, some of us have been desperately looking for new strategies—a new approach to this age-old problem that can help us to scale up and speed up progress. Today, I’m happy to report that the NGO CSW/NY Cities for CEDAW campaign as great potential to take us in that direction.

In 1998, San Francisco became the first municipality in the world to adopt a local ordinance reflecting the principles of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). I’d like to acknowledge Krishanti Dhamaraj and our peer leaders from San Francisco who pioneered this initiative. Between 1998 and 2013, other cities — including Los Angeles and Berkeley, as well as the State of Hawaii —enacted similar initiatives. In 2014 for Beijing plus 20, the NGO CSW/NY launched a national campaign to enroll a host of American cities—great and small. And at CSW 60 we plan to launch Cities for CEDAW as an international campaign.

The concept is simple: If we can weave women’s human rights into the sustainable development agenda in cities, we can scale up and speed up implementation of the 2030 agenda.

What have we learned so far?

1. We must tap the great potential of women’s leadership in cities. 

Women are increasingly leaders at the municipal level. For example, in Costa Rica, Belarus, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine, there are more women councilors than men at local levels. The countries with the highest proportion of women mayors include Latvia (25%), Mauritius (40%), New Zealand (26%), and Serbia (26%)[1]. Still, women often do not pay close attention to local elections. With a successful campaign, we can mobilize voters–especially youth and women– in support of the BPfA, CEDAW and the SDGs.

2. Working with city leaders can help bring men on board.

So far, the campaign has engaged more than 50 cities and counties across the U.S., earned commitments to CEDAW from more than 200 mayors. At CSW 59, three male mayors and Gavin Newsom, Lt. Governor of California sent video messages endorsing CEDAW and calling on other mayors to make women’s human rights central to city programs and services. Mayor Li of San Francisco used the CEDAW ordinance to end gender discrimination in the public works, fire and police departments.

3. Coalitions can be built around CEDAW

“Cities for CEDAW” campaigns are just starting in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Santa Monica, Sarasota and other cities. In New York City the strategy is to build coalitions of municipal constituencies from the bottom up [2] so leaders have reached down to the Borough level to start a “Boroughs for CEDAW” campaign. Two statewide coalitions have emerged in Oregon and North Carolina, while Orange and Miami-Dade Counties have focused on countywide ratification of CEDAW. Hearing of the US effort, the CEDAW experts who serve on the UN CEDAW committee encouraged us at this year’s informal briefing in Geneva to take this campaign to to the international stage. Early prospects include Nigeria, France, Trinidad/Tobago, India and Brazil.

4) Cities have the ability to innovate and measure rapid change, even when national governments cannot—or will not—take action. 

Policy change that has long been stymied at the national level can be achieved at the local level. For example, the WHO has been calling for universal health coverage for years. Guess what? San Francisco has put that in place. How about gender budgeting? Last August, Mayor Garcetti issued an Executive Directive on CEDAW. All General Managers and Department Heads across all sectors are to submit a Gender Equity Action Plan by this February. We continually call for improved data—and that can happen in cities. This year, Los Angeles commissioned groundbreaking research on women’s employment that revealed gender gaps in hiring practices by race, economic status, and disability. The Leadership study will also help city officials make sure that marginalized women and girls are given more opportunities for social and political participation.

5) Innovative financing is possible

There are many lessons to be learned in cities about innovative financing and resource mobilization as many cities work closely with local foundations, individual philanthropists, the private sector, and small businesses. If successful, the Cities for CEDAW campaign will help to strengthen the finances of urban women’s bureaus and commissions and build their capacity to access national and international resources.

Looking ahead at the UN calendar for 2016, I have two recommendations:

First, for governments and the UN – We need a strong recommendation a higher priority for Goal 11 on sustainable cities and communities in the Agreed conclusions. Second, the feminist and women’s movement should help build momentum heading to Habitat III and the High Level Political Forum.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that if we don’t get it right in cities, we will surely fail on a global scale. In Qatar, Singapore, and South Korea, the majority of women and girls are city dwellers. By 2050, nearly 80% of the world’s women and girls will live in urban areas.[3] Furthermore, decisions made right now in cities is determining the fate of rural women’s livelihoods, food security, climate change, and the environment. We have an historic opportunity to demonstrate – in tangible and measurable ways—that enhancing women’s human rights is a practical approach to sustainable development and that the UN can help transform the lives of women and girls in developed as well as developing countries. The good news is that we are well on our way to sending that message—one city at a time.

____________

You are invited to an NGO CSW/NY parallel event on 17 March at 6:15, second floor at the Church Center that will launch the international campaign.

[1] The World’s Women 2010, United Nations, New York.

[2] The information presented here is a summary of reports submitted to the NGO CSW/NY up to October 15 2015. For more information on the cities engaged in the campaign, see: https://citiesforcedaw.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/welcome-to-the-cities-for-cedaw-weblog/ and https://www.facebook.com/cities4CEDAW/

[3] UN Conference of Parties, Outreach Issues, Warsaw, 2013, www.cop19.gov.pl.

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GENERAL COMMENTS

Most of the policy paper frameworks mention gender equality and women’s participation and empowerment as a general theme. However, a more in-depth analysis is needed. Please note:

1. None of the papers mention the pervasive culture of violence against women and girls, yet tackling this key social issue is essential to ensuring women’s empowerment and participation. In many cities, the threat of gender-based violence restricts the mobility and political freedoms of women and girls. Women and girls face violence in the home, in cyberspace, in public transport and public places as well as sexual harassment in the workplace.
2. Throughout the papers there is an incorrect assumption that cities are equally safe for men and women. The reality is that urban crime, terrorist threats and warfare affect women and girls disproportionally. In addition, there is little or no mention of the special needs of women and girls who are victims of trafficking, are refugees or migrants facing sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations.
3. Women and girls face “intersecting”, multiple forms of discrimination. None of the papers mentions indigenous women, women and girls living with disabilities and LGBT groups. The wide diversity of women and girls by ethnicity, religion, age, economic, legal, political and social status should be reflected in data and research so as to monitor the impact of policies on these groups.
4. Cities are widely recognized to be open ecological systems. However, most of the attention in these papers is paid to the importance of coordination with national policies. Few of the papers acknowledge that cities are affected by global politics and financial and economic trends that have powerful sway over local development. The ecological urban framework should analyze this interconnectedness and make recommendations at the global level.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. The Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) provide comprehensive policy and legal guidance for the New Urban Agenda. These UN agreements should be highlighted in all policy papers because they cover the women’s issues mentioned above and outline recommendations for multiple stakeholders.
2. If the 2030 sustainable goals are to succeed, the BPfA and CEDAW must be implemented in cities and communities where innovation and measurement are at times easier and faster than at national level. As a follow-up to Habitat III and the High Level Political Forum in 2016 the UN regional economic and social commissions should experiment with novel solutions through pilot projects. For example, in the Latin America region, ECLAC could choose sub-regionally typical cities to conduct pilot projects that ensure that women’s human rights are fully integrated into the 17 sustainable development goals. These would help guide implementation of the New Urban Agenda throughout the region.

SPECIFIC PAPERS

1. The right to the city and cities for all – The right to cities—meaning that “the territories of the cities and their hinterlands are considered as spaces for the exercise and fulfillment of rights. . . “ should be a fundamental principle and ethical guideline for the New Urban Agenda. While this paper presents this concept and promotes women’s empowerment, it is often confusing and lacks coherence. More concrete examples and reorganization of the argument would be helpful.
2. Socio-cultural urban framework – Like paper #1, the topic of a socio-cultural framework is extremely important raising issues such as cultural diversity and the important role of civil society. However, the logical flow of the paper should be rethought and recommendations made more concrete.
3. National urban policy – This is an excellent outline of how national policy frameworks can help cities and communities. It covers a wide range of issues such as regulatory reform, recognition of informality in land rights, and data collection. It also clearly defines concepts, presents pertinent evidence and takes into account the national as well as local policies.
4. Urban governance capacity and institutional development – This paper stands out as relatively gender-blind. It does not does not offer much help in understanding governance, and it would be improved by including more specific examples.
5. Municipal finance and local fiscal systems – For readers who are less familiar with municipal financing, this paper provides a clear introduction. It offers concrete recommendations such as the need to build the capacity of city employees to manage city financing and it promotes citizen participation in budget decision-making.
6. Urban spatial strategies – This paper presents one of the most thoughtful, strategic policy frameworks. It notes that the issue of spatial planning encompasses more than what may appear on paper and includes the role of public space, land, and urban-rural linkages. It emphasizes the importance of addressing the underlying social and political problems often involved in spatial planning. The paper proposes to replace the urban-rural “dichotomy” with the urban-rural “continuum” in order to better understand the dynamics of population growth and the situation of small and medium-sized cities. It is also one of the few papers that mentions the challenges of working with the private sector, noting the need for more platforms for private-pubic partnerships.
7. Urban economic development strategies – Economic development is extraordinarily important, but this paper disappoints the reader by presenting a general discussion with few strategic specifics.
8. Urban ecology and resilience. This paper argues that an urban ecological framework must replace a conventional paradigm that looks at human settlements as isolated units. The urban ecology approach includes biotic and physical elements and recognizes the interaction between natural systems and social and cultural systems. For example, to build a resilient city, policy makers must take a holistic view of how social development and citizen participation can contribute to sustainable economic growth.
9. Urban services and technology –Planning urban services with the use of advanced technology is a promising approach to an age-old problem. However, this paper does not give much insight on how to accomplish this.
10. Housing policies – Housing policies evoke passionate politics and mismanagement can lead to serious social upheavals. However, the policies needed to achieve sustainable, equitable, inclusive housing are not discussed here. Perhaps best-practice examples would strengthen this paper.

Find the policy papers here

Read more about Habitat

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On behalf of IAW, Soon-Young Yoon, main representative to the United Nations, New York has submitted  a comment on the current issues papers of Habitat III :

GENERAL COMMENT

The sustainable development goals can only succeed if women’s human rights are at the center of the discussion. Equally important, women’s leadership can help scale-up and speed-up progress toward innovative, inclusive, compact and resilient cities.

1. What’s missing?

1. Habitat III offers a unique opportunity to ensure that a human rights framework that includes women’s or integrates gender to guide the formulation and implementation of the New Urban Agenda. Habitat III must be a continuation of the Post-2015 Agenda and the SDGs, and build on the internationally agreements that address gender and other inequalities. Valuable insights can be found in the Beijing Platform for Action (191 countries) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (188 countries) as well as other international documents adopted at the Vienna Conference on Human Rights and International Conference on Population and Development. But as important these agreements have been in establishing policy norms and standards, none of these milestones on the path to social progress and women’s empowerment are mentioned in the issues papers.

2. Missing also are mandates at the regional level that can help to support regional follow-up initiatives to Habitat III. The papers should explore the political potential of regional agreements such as the African Charter and European Union Gender Equality Law. More than just lip service to gender equality and women’s empowerment, these mandates have practical value. For example, they can be used in designing regional-level pilot projects to showcase human rights based and gender-responsive framework that is in line with vision of the New Urban Agenda.

3. The current draft also ignores data and statistics on gender equality or women’s human rights and empowerment as they relate to sustainable development and climate change. [1] Nor does it identify gaps and methodologies needed to be able to monitor and evaluate gender-based discrimination and violence at the city level.

4. As noted by several governments, the issues papers should include more examples of best practices. These should be relevant in developed as well as developing countries, correcting the current bias in the papers towards developing countries. In the case of women’s empowerment, there are a host of examples that could be cited in most of the issues papers to reflect conditions at grass roots as well as national and international levels.

1. A human rights framework must shape all issue papers

Gender equality in the papers is presented primarily as an “add on” to urban planning rather than a comprehensive framework guiding policy and programs. The wide diversity of women’s situation is not acknowledged and women are presented primarily as one of the many vulnerable groups rather than key decision-makers. Women’s unpaid care work is not acknowledged nor a recognition of how redistribution and provision of services can support sustainable cities. Furthermore, the public policy bias of the papers ignores the critical connection with the home and private sphere. The role of civil society, including the leadership of men and boys to achieve gender equality is critical to the success of the New Urban Agenda but is hardly mentioned. In brief, the issues papers need a comprehensive gender analysis. The following are some points that should be noted:

1. Private and Public spheres are connected– Public policies and services must always measure their success by whether or not they have improved the lives of citizens –not just in the workplace or the public sphere, but in the context of the home and family as well. There is no safe city when women’s human rights are violated due to domestic violence in the home. There is no end to poverty if women’s income must be meekly handed over to a male head of household. And there is no true democracy to strengthen civil and political rights if women and girls are not allowed to make decisions about their own bodies and exercise their sexual and reproductive health rights.
2. Women are not just victims or a vulnerable group—Women are key decision-makers concerning economic and social rights related to food security, biodiversity, cultural heritage, migration, energy consumption and family size. They also play critical roles in the use of water, energy and natural resources and finding climate solutions. They have a specific role in the urban ecology as managers of household energy. Indeed, women are at the heart of the water-energy-food nexus. In many developing countries, rural and urban women are the human transporters of water, fuel and food and their capacity defines the speed and quality of the rural-urban flow of goods.
3. Urban women are diverse – The gender analysis of the New Urban Agenda must avoid stereotyping and acknowledge the wide diversity of women’s situation by including the intersections of age, gender identity (including LGBTI) ethnicity, disability, religion, economic, social and political status, as well as cultural and ecological status. The human rights framework must be inclusive enough to apply to women heading corporations, working in city government, active in politics –as well as women living in poverty. In addition, since in many developed countries indigenous women must live and work within urban environments their concerns and specific challenges also need to be addressed.
4. End violence against women – The New Urban Agenda must include a commitment to prevent—and ultimately end–violence against women and girls. Mental, sexual and physical abuse that take place within the home, in the community or by the State and the threat of violence inhibit women’s political participation and lead to unequal access to services. Men and boys must take stronger leadership roles to address cultural norms and behavioral changes needed to end violence against girls and women of all ages.

Read the comment

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Let us be clear:  we applaud any endorsement of human rights for women, and we count ourselves fortunate for the laws to ensure gender equality and women’s empowerment that are already in place. But CEDAW can take us one step further. It is a comprehensive, legally binding instrument covering all economic, political, social and cultural rights specifically for women and girls. It clearly defines discrimination; calls on states to redress wrongs, but can also proactively protect women’s human rights.

When it is applied in full, CEDAW addresses a wide range of issues from safe work places and smoke-free environments to flexible work schedules and equal political participation–as well as providing for equal access to sexual and reproductive health services. CEDAW also lays the legal foundation to address new and emerging issues such as forced marriage and female-genital mutilation: issues that are no longer “ African or Middle East issues”—but are hot topics of debate among immigrant communities right here at home.

Progress may be distressingly slow at the national level, caught in partisan paralysis. But over and over again, cities have shown that they can get things moving farther, faster, and often more creatively than at the state and national levels.

The good news is that we don’t have to start from scratch. In 1998, San Francisco became the first municipality in the world to adopt a local ordinance reflecting the principles of CEDAW. When my organization, the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/NY, launched the Cities for CEDAW campaign we turned to San Francisco to be the US peer leader – and we couldn’t have picked a better partner.

Today, other cities like Los Angeles, Portland, Berkeley as well as the State of Hawaii are on board. This week, during a national call convened by Women’s Intercultural Network and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights we learned that mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles will make a new proclamation requiring all city departments to measure their performance according to CEDAW. In Louisville, Kentucky, Washington DC and New York City, women’s organizations are building bottom-up coalitions with human rights activists, unions, students and city councils —in support of a city ordinance based on CEDAW. We now have You-tube messages from Mayor Lee of San Francisco, Mayor Shelley Welsch of University City, and Mayor Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma, Washington explaining how Cities for CEDAW can help improve the lives of women and girls. Mayor Ralph Becker of Salt Lake City has also testified that CEDAW provides a good structure for gender audits. All this has happened because years ago, citizens of California took the bold step to make an international treaty relevant to city governance.

How can you make a difference?  Creativity should be our top priority.  Being creative means using the full mandate of CEDAW to end gender inequality in key jobs throughout the public sector. Being creative means finding new sources of financing –sometimes working with the private sector—to fund pilot projects that make a difference to single mothers living in poverty. Being creative is making sure that women and girls with disabilities, older women, and women from ethnic and religious minorities, LGBT and indigenous communities are registered to vote and that they do so—in local as well as national elections. Along the way, cities must measure, measure, measure their successes in ways that will show other city leaders how to bring these innovations to scale.

Another priority should be to give women and girls a greater voice in urban politics and development. It is well known in the corporate world that bringing women into the boardroom increases the likelihood of diverse and innovative ideas and maximizes productivity. In city development, the same is true—where women lead, we improve the outcomes for whole families and communities. When we bring the other 50% of our citizens on board, we can speed-up and scale up social and economic change.

You should also mobilize men and boys to end sex trafficking and sexual violence against women and girls.  As the UN ambassador from Denmark said, “Women never started violence against women—why are we asking them to end it”? The governments of Barbados and Iceland hosted a Barbershop Conference at the UN, where ambassadors—mostly men—could “let down their hair” and talk about family, men’s roles, and masculinity.  Since then, I have noticed that men at the UN are more active in using their influence to support gender equality and women’s empowerment. Some, like Dr. Ivan Simonovic, UN under-secretary general for human rights, have already shown strong support for the Cities for CEDAW campaign.

I pledge to do my part. My NGO Committee on the Status of Women/New York and the International Alliance of Women will work tirelessly with others to make sure that the US campaign stays strong. In January this year, the Cities for CEDAW Campaign held a virtual national conference engaging hundreds of participants across the US. The Cities for CEDAW Campaign gathered more momentum at the UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting, and we are going to make sure that it will also be introduced into the UN sustainable development debates during the General Assembly this fall. When I return to New York, our committee will exchange ideas with the coordinators of Habitat III, the next world conference on human settlements, to take place in Ecuador next year.th

Read about the campaign

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Madame Chair, Excellencies, and distinguished participants,

What do we want from Beijing + 20? When my husband asked me that question, I had one answer: “Hope”. We must believe that violence against women and girls can end in our lifetimes. We must regain our confidence that patriarchy can be dismantled once and for all.

Next year, many global trends may point to a different conclusion. During the Review and Appraisal of the Beijing Platform for Action, you will hear a lot of sceptism about progress made. Governments and NGOs will lament the negative impacts of the global financial crisis, the slow progress on climate change negotiations, and setbacks of the women’s movement due to fundamentalist backlash. With all the backsliding, we could end up discouraged. And that would be wrong.

Let’s look back to 1975 for inspiration. When governments met in Mexico for the first UN World Conference on Women that year, how many recommendations mentioned “Ministries of Women’s Affairs”? None, because those institutions didn’t even exist.

Did governments debate “gender equality” at the UN Conference on Women in Copenhagen in 1980? No—because the concept of gender did not exist in UN documents until 1995. When CEDAW was first introduced, only a handful of governments had signed it. Today, 188 governments have ratified CEDAW. That is how women like Unity Dow in Botswana won the right to pass on full citizenship to her children. That is why so many family and civil laws are being transformed to support women’s rights in Central Asia and in many developing countries. We, the feminist and women’s movements, made that happen. You—with your intellectual and moral leadership – changed all that.

And during Beijing + 20, we can reach even higher. Looking ahead, there are two events that I’d like to “praise and raise”.

Mark your calendars. In January next year, Iceland and Suriname will host a Men’s Conference to Combat Violence Against Women at UN headquarters. Although some of the events that day will be open to women, most of the participants will be men. It will not be a “He for She” meeting in line with the UN campaign in which men talk about what they can do for women. Instead, it will be a men’s conference about men – a barbershop-like gathering when they let down their hair, so to speak, and talk about what happens in personal as well as public lives.

This innovative UN conference is welcome at a time when the role of men and boys is gaining greater importance in achieving gender equality. Mind you, there is still controversy around the men’s meeting. Some of you gathered here today might be angry that women’s “precious political space” gained at the UN is suddenly given back to men.

I would disagree. We are not giving up space, but putting responsibility where it belongs. As Ambassador Pederson of Norway once put it, “Women never caused violence against women—why are they being asked to end it?”. It is, indeed, time for the majority of non- violent men to speak out to other men about changing their behavior and to reevaluate concepts of masculinity.

Another Beijing + 20 event to watch is Cities for CEDAW. Last Friday, I was in a virtual planning committee meeting  to organize a national conference in the United States. The goal of the campaign is to get 100 mayors in the US to adopt CEDAW as a city ordinance by June 2015, just like San Francisco did in 1998. In this campaign, we must weave women’s human rights so tightly into the fabric of the Sustainable Development Goals that it will be impossible to separate them. If we can get it right in cities, we can get it right for countries.

I’m happy to report that more than 230 US mayors supported a resolution on CEDAW at the last National Conference of Mayors. Atlanta, Baltimore, New York City and Los Angeles are among the cities we are counting on to help move this campaign to a successful conclusion.

For the international feminist and women’s movements, Beijing + 20 is our special moment—a near cosmic convergence of global happenings: the end of the Milleninum Development Goals and the launch of new UN Development Agenda.

The NGO CSW/New York is committed to doing its part. We are a 99.9% volunteer organization that welcomes all of you to next year’s NGO CSW Forum from 9 to 20 March in New York, parallel to the CSW. On Consultation Day on 8 March, our Woman of Distinction Awardee will give a keynote address. The Women of the World music ensemble, youth poets, and filmmakers will also celebrate Beijing + 20. On Friday the 13th, we will have a very lucky Celebration March down Second Avenue, wearing banners for equality, development and peace.

By the Chinese calendar, 2015 is the Year of the Sheep. It will be a time when peace, harmony and reconciliation can mark new beginnings. Starting with this wonderful NGO Forum in Geneva, some of us will travel to other regional consultations in preparation for CSW 59. Let us carry hope in our hearts from place to place like an Olympic torch. Then, when we have won the games are, we can pass on the flame to the next generation.

The post What do we want from Beijing + 20? appeared first on International Alliance of Women.

Conceptual Framework
The Beijing Platform for Action recognizes that “the advancement of women and the achievement of quality between women and men are a matter of human rights1”.Gender equality and women’s empowerment is also a condition for social justice, and sustainable development with cultural and environmental security for all. The Agreed Conclusions adopted at the Fifty-eighth session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women further reaffirms that the social determinants of health as well as health services need policy implementation to guarantee women’s health rights. The
conceptual framework:

1. Recognizes the wide diversity of girls and women who face differing and/or multiple discriminations. Barriers to good health may exist due to differences in “race, age, language, ethnicity, culture, religion or disability, because they are indigenous women or because of other status”2. Single parents, rural, refugee and displaced women, immigrants and women migrant workers vary in their ability to participate equally in decision-making and access health services.
2. Asserts that the right of women to control all aspects of their health, in particular, their own fertility and exercising their reproductive rights is basic to their empowerment
3. Acknowledges the importance of women’s health to end poverty and advance economic and political sustainable development.
4. Establishes a life cycle or life course approach with an emphasis on protection, prevention, and maintenance of health as a state of complete mental and physical well being.
5. Calls for universal access to health care, including quality sexual andreproductive health services, and
6. Recommends that men and boys help ensure an equal sharing of responsibilities and play an active role in achieving women’s empowerment.

Twenty years after the Fourth World Conference on Women, this framework continues to serve as an excellent policy guide. In addition, the 188 countries that ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women have a legal instrument to advance women’s rights to health as a human right. Have these international agreements become a reality? What are the achievements, obstacles, and challenges ahead? The following review provides examples related to the BPfA critical area of concern on women and health in North America and Europe with reference to
the global situation.

Universal Health Care is a human rights issue-example of the US.
As Dr Margaret Chan stated in her address to the World Health Assembly in May 2012, “Universal health coverage is the single most powerful concept that public health has to offer. It is a powerful equalizer that abolishes distinctions between rich and poor, the privileged and the marginalized, the young and the old, ethnic groups, and men and women. This is the anchor for the work of WHO as we move forward.”

Twenty years after the FWCW, the United States is an example of a late comer (as an advanced industrial country) to address UHC. How is it progressing? The U.S. Affordable Healthcare Act provides health insurance to all. Its key components are a Health Insurance Marketplace, a new way for individuals, families, and small businesses to get health coverage; coverage for people with pre-existing health conditions; insurance companies accountable for rate increases; protection against an insurance company arbitrarily cancelling a policy because a person gets sick; protection in choice of doctors; young adults under 26 covered under their parents’ insurance if they are not employed
and are students ; free preventive care; ( screening programs such as mammograms ), ending of lifetime and yearly limits on coverage of essential health benefits; breastfeeding equipment and support; birth control and counseling; mental health and substance abuse service parity; and the right to appeal a health plan decision. Prior to the Affordable Healthcare Act there was a healthcare crisis in the U.S.:
• In 2011, 35% of adults aged 18–64 who were uninsured did not get, or delayed, needed medical care due to its cost, compared with 7% of adults with private coverage and 13% of adults on Medicaid.
• In 2011, 24% of adults aged 18–64 who were uninsured did not get needed prescription drugs due to cost, compared with 5% of those with private coverage and 14% of those with Medicaid Center for Disease Control.
• Between 2001 and 2011, the percentage of the population under age 65 with private health insurance obtained through the workplace declined from 67% to 56%.
• In 2011, 7% of children under age 18 and 21% of adults, aged 18–64, had no health insurance coverage (public or private).
• The number of adult women and men without health insurance has increased. People with insurance are much more likely to have a doctoror other medical professional who provides regular care; one out of seven women has no usual source of health care. (White House Council on Women and Girls).

Prior to the Affordable Healthcare Act, many people with mental illness or substance abuse issues did not have insurance that covered the necessary services or they had a finite number of visits and inpatient psychiatric hospital stays. The Affordable Healthcare Act health insurance plans are now required to cover mental health and substance abuse services even if the condition was pre-existing. There is are also no waiting period for coverage of these services and no lifetime or yearly dollar limits for mental health services with parity protection for mental health services. This means that
limits applied to mental health and substance abuse services cannot be more restrictive
than limits applied to medical and surgical services.

Although it is too early to know what effect the full Affordable Healthcare Act will have on the American people, to date there has been a significant increase in coverage for 19-25 year olds. Evaluation results are likely to also indicate that disadvantaged women, including female heads of households, and older women coverage may be essential.

HIV/AIDS– Differences Among the Disadvantaged
New HIV/AIDS infections continue to decline in most of North America and Europe and access to treatment has improved. For example, by 2010, 88% of pregnant women living with HIV in Eastern Europe received treatment to prevent transmission to their child. However, social and ethnic inequalities persist. According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2010 the rate of HIV infections among Black women in the U.S. was 20 times that of white women.4 Aboriginal women, who represent 4% of the Canadian female population accounted for 45% of positive HIV tests among women in 2007.
Most alarming, the number of persons living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia almost tripled between 2000 and 2009 with young women appearing to be the most
vulnerable. In Russia, the number of young women aged 15 to 24 years with HIV is twice the number of men of the same age. Similar trends are found among young women in the U.S.6 other high-risk groups include women who use drugs (caused by needle sharing), women in prostitution, replace with commercial sexual workers, prisoners and victims of sexual violence.

NCD – The Missing Target
The most outstanding change in the global health context is the rise in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Although the BPfA mentions cancers, comprehensive policy guidance for women and NCDs developed more recently in response to the global epidemic. According to the Global Status Report on NCDs (WHO), almost two thirds of the 57 million deaths that occurred in 2008 were due to NCDs, mainly cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic lung diseases. NCDs are the leading cause of death in women, killing 18 million women each year, exceeding communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions combined. Of all the regions covered by WHO, Europe has the highest burden of NCDs, accounting for 77% of all disease and 86% of mortality before the age of 60.

The four main NCD risk factors are unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco use and abuse of alcohol. Women are more likely to be obese than men, become ill or die of secondhand smoke (SHS)9 and are less knowledgeable about heart disease. Even in highincome countries, women belonging to lower social economic strata have higher risks of cancer death due to unequal access to health services that provide early detection and treatment of breast and cervical cancer.

Many women are unaware of the methods of preventing or the need for early diagnosis of NCDs. For example, most North American women believe that men are more likely to suffer from heart disease and lung cancer, not realizing that heart disease is the number one killer of American women10 and that an increasing number of women are dying from lung cancer in North America and in high-income European countries, largely due to tobacco use.

Women carry the heaviest burden of NCDs due to economic inequalities and their role as unpaid caregivers. Few governments take women’s unpaid work into account in public financing. Nor do social protection programs sufficiently offer support for homebased care that would improve women’s capacity to balance work, caregiving and family responsibilities. Unfortunately women tend to neglect their own health and often do not have access to health care services and this puts them at a higher risk.

NCDs also affect national economies by inflicting debt and pushing millions of people into poverty. A report of the UNDP notes that NCDs constitute a larger share of lost output in higher-income countries because labour and health care costs are more expensive. By 2020, two thirds of the expected 7.5 million deaths from tobacco will occur in Lower and Middle-Income Countries and half will be among those in their economically productive middle years.

Multisectoral coordination is needed to ensure that women and girls are protected from aggressive marketing by the tobacco industry. Progress in combatting NCDs include ratification and enforcement of the WHO Framework Convention in Tobacco Control that calls for gender-specific policies, raised taxes and women’s participation in decision-making. Improved data collection on NCD risk factors, efforts in primary care as well as universal health care coverage such as the U.S. Affordable Care Act and health prevention are advancing. However, the costs of health care in Canada are escalating
and services are being cut. Greater attention is needed to inequalities, including those related to gender, age, socio-economic and ethnic status.

Recommendations
a. Universal health coverage should include financial risk protection, access to quality essential health care services, and access to safe, effective, quality, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for girls and women of all ages. Special measures should be taken to ensure access by women who face
discrimination by age, gender identity, social and economic status.

b. UHC should have benchmarks with progressive realization and financial investments in women’s health using the life cycle approach as women’s health needs and challenges they face vary with age.

c. Women should have equal leadership roles in public health information and communications campaigns to address myths and misconceptions about women and girls’ health, including sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDs and NCDs. Stronger efforts should be made to disseminate gender-sensitive information about early detection and timely treatment of cancers and diabetes, physical
activity, enforcement of smoke-free public places and raising taxes on harmful products like tobacco and alcohol. Special attention should be given to reach women and girls throughout their life course.

d. Women’s health data, including indicators on sexual and reproductive health, maternal mortality and other indicators reflecting the wide diversity of women should be included in the sustainable development goals (SDGs)

e. Public and private foundation funding should increase support for research and data collection to incorporate gender design, analysis and interpretation of studies on women’s health; gender-specific monitoring and evaluation of health services delivery and effectiveness is also needed.

f. Innovative partnerships should be established to improve access to affordable, quality-assured, gender-sensitive essential medicines to provide prevention, early detection and treatment for women—particularly in rural communities as well as low and middle-income countries.

g. Public policies should take women’s unpaid care work, including that related to support for the disabled and chronically ill, into account in national budgeting and ensure that public funds are allocated for social protection services. h. Civil society advocates for women and health and governments should support the full implementation of the BPfA, CEDAW, Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights instruments that support women’s health rights, WHO Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases (2013 – 2010), the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health as well as the Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol.

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NGO Oral Statement 11 March, CSW58
Presented at the official UN meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women
North Lawn Building, Conference room 2

By Soon-Young Yoon, UN representative International Alliance of Women
and Chair, NGO Committee on the Status of Women

Thank you Chair

 Excellencies and Distinguished delegates

On 9 March this year, a standing room only crowd of more than 900 gathered at the Great Hall of Cooper Union for Consultation Day—the largest of 300 NGO events held in parallel with the CSW this year.  During that extraordinary gathering of civil society, Sharon Bhagwan Rolls—a Fiji Islander, talked about her vision for using media and communications to empower women and girls. As a young woman, she joined the Fiji government delegation to the UN Fourth World Conference where she filed news reports for Fiji television. She worked her way up the ranks in radio to become an award-winning copywriter and radio station manager. During Fiji’s violent coup, Bhagwan Rolls led the Blue Ribbon peace movement calling for non-violent protest in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi. Tonight, at the NGO CSW Forum reception, we will present Sharon with our annual Woman of Distinction award for her outstanding leadership.

Sharon is an example of one woman’s journey to this CSW. In the next two weeks, you will see more like her– thousands of NGO participants who are volunteering their time—and often paying their own way– to tell the world their stories, and bring their urgent messages to the UN.  They fight for the rights of women and girls living with disabilities, and HIV/AIDS. Faith-based groups, foundations, men and boys’ organizations will add their voices. Advocates for indigenous women and girls, rural women, widows, lesbians, gays and bisexuals, migrant workers, victims of violence and cancer survivors are calling for governments and the UN to speed up progress. The hundreds of NGO events include training workshops, films, an artisanal fair, and expert panels. This Friday, hundreds of us will march down Second Avenue to celebrate the theme of the first Women’s Decade of “Equality, Development and Peace”. We invite everyone in this room to join us at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at 12:30 pm.

What do we expect from this CSW? As one woman put it, “We want a high return for our investment”. My organization, the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York estimates that every year, the women’s movement contributes nearly two million dollars and thousands of volunteer hours to make the CSW a success. So above all, we want the best Agreed Conclusion ever passed at the CSW. With all of the talk of “push back” and “roll back”, some governments have settled in for mediocre results. The women of the world are in no mood to “settle”.  Indeed, we expect that this year’s Agreed Conclusions will enlist us to count women’s unpaid work, place gender equality and women’s empowerment at the heart of invigorating economic growth, give a green light to all girls to move into new political spaces, and inspire us all to scale up and speed up progress on universal health care coverage.

It’s long past time for governments to communicate truth with clearer messages. Yes, we need a stand-alone goal for gender equality and women’s empowerment in the next UN development agenda.  The Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women—adopted so long ago remain the women’s movement’s blueprint for the post-2015 agenda. There will never be sustainable development if there is no food security in the home. No country is at peace if domestic violence is rampant. And equality under the law means nothing if women do not have a voice at home.

We draw your attention to the growing importance of cities. By 2050, more than 80 percent of women will live in urban settlements. All challenges in the future related to disaster management, violence against women, education, health care, and political participation will be decided in cities. Indeed, if our city leaders do not get policies right, it will have disastrous effects on rural economies and sustainable livelihoods.

Beijing + 20 will be launched at this CSW and our global campaign will continue through the GA high-level event in September 2015.  This year, the United Nations must uphold the highest ethical standards for gender equality and women’s empowerment because—ultimately—that can set the high bar not only for government policy but for changes in personal conduct as well. If these standards are upheld, if truth and clarity replace obfuscation and timidity, then somewhere after Beijing + 20 is over, a young woman or man can look back at what we have done and say “I’m proud that I was there”.  

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