Thank you delegates and individual members for your vote of confidence.  That vote means a decision has been made by the members for the organization and its continuance.  Rights such as voting that we now take for granted resonates back to the inception of IAW and the reason the organization was established by women’s organizations growing around the world.

We are the inheritors of all those experiences of unrelenting commitment to women’s rights.

Thank you to past President Joanna Manganara and her Board for leading the organization for these past 7 years.  Your papers are a great contribution to the organization.

The new Board and I will be counting on every one to engage in the work we need to do to move the Alliance forward and continue to be influencers in our time.  There is much to be done but I know we have very many talented and dedicated women to work with.  By helping each other we can accomplish anything and I’m really looking forward to our work together.

Newly elected Secretary General: Olufunmi Oluyede, Nigeria

Newly elected Treasurer: Antonia Lavine, USA

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Rural women comprise 1 in 4 people worldwide and they constitute a large share of the agricultural workforce. They play an essential role in ensuring food and nutrition security, eradicating rural poverty and improving the well-being of their families.

Yet, they continue to face serious challenges as a result of gender-based stereotypes that deny them equitable access to opportunities, resources, assets, and services.

The Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is intrinsically linked to the lives of women and girls globally, including that of rural women who are vital to its success. The goals to end hunger, achieve food security, and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture as well as the goals to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment are particularly focused on rural women.

It is intrinsically recognised that poverty is heavily concentrated in rural areas and that substantial progress towards achieving the SDGs depends heavily on improving agricultural and rural development.

Improvement in agricultural performance has the potential to increase rural incomes and purchasing power for large numbers of people in rural areas.

Thus more than any other sectors, agriculture can uplift people on a mass scale. A virtuous cycle of reduced hunger, increased productivity, increased income and sustainable poverty reduction can be started.

If rural women had equal access with men to productive resources such as seeds, tools and fertilizers, they would increase yields on their farms by 20 to 30%. This would raise total agricultural output from 2.5 to 4% reducing the number of malnourished people from 17 to 12%.

Rural women are key agents for achieving the transformational, economic, environmental and social changes required for sustainable development. What are the main challenges women and girls are facing today and what should be done? 

Leadership, decision-making and voice

The under-representation of rural women in political and public life is high in most countries. States should establish quotas and targets for rural women’s representation in decision-making positions.

When women are engaged in producers and traders’ associations, cooperatives, labour councils and financial institutions, they can lobby for their views to be heard, for their needs to be met, and for their rights to be respected.

Institutional arrangements are needed to support the participation of women in policy-design, implementation and evaluation as part of decision-making processes.

Equal access to and control of land and other rural productive resources, technology, markets, and financing

States should ensure that national laws and policies guarantee rural women’s right to land including upon divorce and separation and their right to inheritance in both customary and statutory systems. It is estimated that rural women own less than 10% of property in the developed world and 2% in the developing world. Ensuring rights to land is vital for rural women’s economic empowerment.

Priority should be given to raising women’s awareness of their rights, forcing legislation and increasing women’s access to legal assistance.

Women’s access to financial services including savings, insurance and credit is essential to allow them to benefit from economic opportunities in rural areas. Access to micro-finance can increase women’s investment in technologies such as solar panels to generate electricity as well as agricultural technologies to enhance the profitability of their businesses.

Promoting rural women’s employment, decent work and social protection

While being livelihood source for 86% of rural women and men, and a job generator for 1.3 billion smallholder farmers and landless workers, agriculture alone cannot reduce poverty.

States should ensure and expand the equal access to opportunities for employment and decent work in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors.

They should facilitate the transition from the informal to the formal sector including through promoting and strengthening women’s economic opportunities in micro and small enterprises, sustainable social enterprises and cooperatives. These enterprises and cooperatives can be established in several different sectors: transport, storage, infrastructure, local service sector, tourism, trade, agribusiness, the rural industry.

States should establish or expand national social protection systems with a gendered perspective to provide basic social protection and social support measures for rural women of all ages. They should also take measures to ensure sustainable long-term financial support for such systems. Social protection floors should also be recognised by states as the provision of a systemic base to address poverty and vulnerability.

Unpaid care work, infrastructure and service delivery

The most important barriers that strategies of rural development and employment generation programs face concerning rural women and their access to decent work is unpaid care work, the unequal sharing of care, and other household responsibilities.

Women account for more than half of the total burden of work. However, women’s paid market activities represent only 1/3 of this work compared to men who represent 3/4 of this work. Time spent by women in domestic responsibilities limits their opportunities to participate in the labour force or to engage in economic activity and entails missed opportunities to attend school.

States should reduce unpaid care work through investment, infrastructure and labour saving technologies that are focused on household care tasks to help rural women to reconcile work and family responsibilities.

Measures are also needed to increase access to health facilities, education, training and other support services.

Unpaid care work should be valued and made visible to policy-makers in order to become the subject of policy attention and investment in rural areas.

States should implement policies favourable to burden sharing and challenge gender stereotypes that prevent men from contributing to unpaid care work.

Data Collection

The need to improve the collection of data disaggregated by sex, age, rural, urban areas as well as gender-sensitive indicators is imperative. The analysis and use of data are critical for gender-responsive policies in rural areas, (design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation).

To meet the above challenge of closing the gender gap, efforts have to be undertaken to empower women and girls in rural areas. We, therefore, call on member states to:

Increase investments and infrastructure, essential services, indigenous, traditional and new technologies and productive capacities in rural areas to reduce rural women’s unpaid care work and enhance their sustainable livelihoods.

Recognise and support women as actors in climate change adaptation, mitigation, disaster risk reduction, and resilience strategies (protection of water, food, fuel energy, and livelihoods).

Strengthen gender-responsive accountability mechanisms to ensure that rural women and their organisations can influence policy formulation, implementation, and monitoring at all levels of government with a view to enabling rural women to hold all duty bearers to account.

Prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against rural women and girls including harmful practices.

As to the role of civil society, IAW welcomes the recently adopted GR 34 on rural women which interprets Article 14 of CEDAW in the context of the Convention as a whole.

GR 34 is particularly helpful to women’s organisation and civil society more generally as it is an important tool with which government’s accountability can be checked.

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IAW Written Statement to CSW61 2017

Inclusive and sustainable growth around the world is the overarching vision of the 2030 development agenda.  Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment are central to this vision but progress has been far too slow.

What is the reason for this lack of progress? The early twenty first century’s global context with rising inequalities, poverty, hunger, climate change all of which are the result of prevailing economic models and paradigms pose unprecedented challenges for the realization of women’s rights and undermine further the sustainability of communities and societies. Dominant development patterns are based on gender inequalities, and have proved unsustainable as regards many issues including economic growth and work.

The underlying causes and consequences of unsustainability are deeply interwined and rooted in the dominant economic models. These involve economic liberalization, the concentration of the productive and financial activity to short term profits, and the privatization of public goods and services, all at the expense of state regulation and redistribution. The fruits of economic growth have also been unequally divided. Over the past three decades economic disparities between and within countries and regions have increased.

What has been the impact of these development patterns on women and work? Women have entered the labor market in large numbers. Free trade and the rapid expansion of market together with the expansion of many corporations supply chains in developing countries have undoubtedly created unprecedented opportunities for women to access paid work. However this has to often been on unequal and highly exploitative terms.

Gender based discrimination and segregation in the labor market, as well as the weak regulation of those markets have served to confine women to jobs that are low paid and of poor quality in terms of working conditions and access to social protection.

They reinforce the status of women as secondary workers within their households.

Women also suffer from lack of access to education, training, recruitment, and equal remuneration and have limited bargaining in decision-making power. Women have also unequal access to productive resources and are over-represented in informal work. The reality that underlies this new model is depressed wage levels, decreased job security, declining living standards, a steep rise in the number of hours worked for wages, exacerbation of the double shift, and rising poverty increasingly concentrated in female headed households.

The vast amount of women’s work that is either rewarded poorly or not rewarded at all is being used to subsidize the world’s economy and fuel unequal and unsustainable growth. Women’s exploitation in the labor market is further compounded by their disproportional share of unpaid care responsibilities which is mainly due to stereotypical gender roles. This burden of care responsibilities often excludes women from paid employment completely or confines them to part time positions which are not as well paid. The result is that women’s unpaid household and care work subsidizes the economy for free.

A lot of discrimination against women is supported by cultural norms, tradition, and religion. Women are powerless to change these norms. Governments should be expected to put resources towards mobilizing to change attitudes and norms. An example of the impact of the stereotypes on women and girls has to do with their education which contributes to higher economic growth. However the impact of stereotypical gender roles on downgrading women’s educational achievements and skills is evident when they try to access the labor market. For the majority of women, significant gains in education have not translated into quality jobs.

Violence which is the result of unequal power relations between women and men and stereotypes against women, has negative repercussions against women in the world of work. It also leads to lower productivity, increased absenteeism, and high turnover. In some cultures the threat of violence has been a reason for limiting women in the home’s sphere.

Recognition is growing world wide that our economic system needs profound reforms. There is also increasing understanding that economic growth alone is not going to lead to gender equality, alleviate poverty and reduce inequality for all.  Macroeconomic policies are all too often geared towards creating the conditions for growth without much attention to bringing societies closer to achieving gender equality and social justice. Gender analysis should also be used as a tool for changing the system, looking at what is valued and how this guides investment priorities, shapes business and economics.

Gender inequality at work can only be eliminated by addressing the discrimination that women experience in the labor market due to their reproductive function, in particular sectoral and occupational segregation, gaps in wages, working hours, and access to social protection. Governments should take measures to promote the equal sharing of unpaid care work between women and men and between family and society.

We should work for a new development model that is not based solely on economic growth but prioritizes people over profits. This new development model should be based on a reorganization of the relations between the production, the finance, and the reproduction sphere with the aim to create a sustainable and gender equal economy which should serve the needs of reproduction, that is care.

Recommendations: 

Addressing root causes and taking a transformational approach to the issue of women’s economic inequality
Governments should:

• ŸEnsure that human rights are the ethical framework for macroeconomic policies and review their impact on women. Ask trade unions, CSO’s and women’s organizations to participate in their elaboration including their implementation and evaluation.
• Implement agreed human and labor standards in national legislations and policies that guarantee and promote women’s access to decent and safe employment in the formal or informal sector (living wage, secure contracts, access to social protection, women’s right to organize and access to remedy, equal pay for work of equal value, equal opportunities and non-discrimination in the work place).
• Eliminate all laws that discriminate against women at work.
• Implement binding international and national regulations, policies and mechanisms concerning human rights standards that require the private sector’s full compliance with them.
• Recognize and value the contribution of unpaid care work to the economy and invest in infrastructures, time saving technologies and quality public services such as child care, care for the elderly and healthcare.
• Institute family friendly policies that enable women and men to balance work with their caring responsibilities.
•  Take measures to challenge discriminatory social norms and gender stereotyping that underpin inequality in women’s work.
• Promote women’s entrepreneurship including by providing them with training and financial support.
• Promote women’s leadership, voice and agency including through engaging with trade unions, civil society, and feminist organizations in economic policy making processes and spaces at all levels.
• Promote women’s access to formal financial institutions and saving mechanisms.
• Design progressive tax regimes and institute gender responsive budgeting that enhance women’s economic rights and access to public services while redressing discrimination and inequality.
• Promote women’s access to education that does not discriminate on the basis of gender and take measures to translate women’s educational achievements and skills in qualified work.
• Promote laws and policies to prevent and protect women against harassment and other forms of violence in the world of work. Establish complaints and monitoring mechanisms to protect women workers. Recognize social dialogue as a means to address such issues.
• Integrate the needs and rights of women refugees, migrant workers, rural and indigenous women and women with special needs in employment policies and social and health services.
• Increase support and funding for feminist and women’s rights organizations.

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Les fondateurs de AISF n’étaient pas au courant qu’il y avait des millions et des millions de personnes qui n’avaient pas été enregistrées à la naissance et par conséquent ne pouvaient donc pas être identifiées au cas où elles étaient admissibles à voter.

Au début de cette année ci, j’ai reçu un courriel de la CESAP, la Commission économique et sociale des Nations Unies pour l’Asie et le Pacifique. J’ai lu que les pays s’étaient rencontrés et avaient promis de faire un plan pour l’enregistrement des naissances. Puis un autre e-mail a annoncé une Résolution du Conseil des droits de l’homme (A/HRC/22/L.14/Rw.1) sur l’enregistrement des naissances, évidemment une préoccupation récurrente. Cette Résolution mentionnait un certain nombre d’instruments internationaux qui ont intimé aux Etats parties l’obligation d’enregistrer tous les enfants immédiatement après la naissance, comme par exemple le Pacte International relatif aux Droits Civils et Politiques, la Convention relative aux Droits de l’Enfant, la Convention iInternationale sur les Droits de tous les Travailleurs Migrants et des Membres de leur Famille et d’autres instruments internationaux pertinents auxquels ces Etats sont parties.

Du coup, j’ai décidé d’approfondir mes recherches à ce sujet; après tout, cela ne sonnait pas comme si beaucoup de progrès avaient été réalisés.

Et en effet, l’UNICEF a mené des enquêtes1) “afin d’estimer les niveaux d’enregistrement dans 64 pays et à comprendre les facteurs qui sont associés aux enfants qui obtiennent un certificat de naissance et réalisent leur droit à un nom et à une identité juridique.”

L’enregistrement des naissances est un droit humain fondamental qui ouvre la porte à d’autres droits, y compris l’éducation et les soins de santé, la participation et la protection. Et plus de cinquante millions d’enfants ne sont pas enregistrés chaque année, les deux cinquièmes des enfants nés!

Les causes de cette situation sont entre autres la pauvreté, le manque d’éducation ou encorela vie dans les zones rurales où les populations en général ne savent pas que les enfants doivent être enregistrés, ou encore ne connaissent pas où se rendre.

Les conséquences liées au non enregistremnt des enfants passent avant l’âge de 5 ans, si les enfants survivent, ils n’ont pas le droit aux soins de santé ou l’éducation. Ils sont sujettes à des abus: le travail des enfants, les infractions sexuelles, le mariage des enfants parce que leur âge ne peut être établi. Quand ils sont adultes, ils ne peuvent pas ouvrir un compte bancaire, obtenir certificat de mariage, ils ne peuvent pas voter.

Donc, si nous prenons la raison pour laquelle nous avons été fondé au sérieux, nous avons du pain sur la planche. Plan International a lancé une campagne de collecte des signatures dans le cadre d’une pétition à l’ONU pour obtenir que chaque enfant ait droit à un anniversaire. Signez-la (www.plan-international.org) et envoyez une e-carte à vos amis.

Lorsque j’ai visité notre association affiliée en Suisse lors de leur réunion annuelle le mois dernier, j’ai acheté un crayon à la fille de la co-présidente. Partout là-dessus il était écrit: ‘Chaque jour est un anniversaire’.

J’ignorais alors que pour beaucoup d’enfants il n’y a pas d’anniversaire.

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