News from the gender working group

Towards Beijing+10 and UNEP's Global Women's Assembly

13.09.2004 |Heike Spöhr

Beijing + 10

Everywhere in the world women and womens organisations are working on getting involved in and contribute to the review process of Beijing + 10. So does the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), which is gearing up for Beijing +10 by preparing a Global Monitoring Report (GMR).

In this report, women will assess and critique the progress governments and international institutions have made in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals. This global report will highlight a series of reports based on women’s experiences, submitted by individual researchers or regional networks.

It will include monitoring tools for women at the national level, including ways to connect their activities to global processes, such as the MDGs, for greater national impact. One objective is to show the world what women have experienced strategies they have used and resources for change.

In order to make the GMR a feasible exercise, seven topics have been selected that the report will focus upon: 1) Implementation of International Human Rights Treaties, 2) Peace and Security, 3) Macro-economic Policy and Poverty Eradication, 4) Power and Decision-Making; 5) Access to and Control of Natural Resources and Environmental Security, 6) Health (including Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS) and 7) Education.

On European level WEDO contacted WECF, WIDE and EWL to contribute to the report by filling in a questionnaire on the 7 topics mentioned above. LIFE will contribute a document concerning the chapter about “Access to and Control of Natural Resources and Environmental Security”, especially evaluating the developments in Germany.

A more general questionnaire (which can be downloaded in English and Russian on www.karat.org) was worked out by Karat, a regional coalition of organizations and individuals that works to ensure gender equality in the Central & Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States countries. Karat with the support of UNIFEM is organizing a Beijing +10 Regional Strategy Meeting which will take place in Warsaw on the 3rd of October. Their questionnaire will be analysed as input for the meeting in Warsaw. The purpose of the meeting is to bring together a group of selected strategic women's movement activists, experienced in UN system, and particularly in Beijing process, including leaders of CEE networks to develop a strategy for CEE region within Beijing+10 reviewing process. The meeting will be a preparation for UNECE Regional Preparatory Meeting for the 10-year review of Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing +10), which will be held on 14-15 December 2004 in Geneva.

UNEP Global Women’s Assembly on Environment: Fighting Poverty

The United Nations Environment Programme UNEP invites to a “Global Women’s Assembly” that will take place in Nairobi, Kenya from 11 – 13 of october 2004. In the preliminary programme topics are mentioned to be discussed in round tables and working groups like: „global environmental changes“, „conflicts and peace“, „improvement of the linkage between local and global level“, „environment and health“, among others. One objective of the meeting is to connect gender justice with environmental protection and to elaborate a declaration, that allows for the essential role of women in the environmental sector. The idea is to deduce concrete demands for specific environmental areas as well as ideas for projects. At the same time the meeting of the Women Ministers for the Environment Network will take place. genanet/Life is working on a brochure for the BMU (German Federal Envirnomental Ministry), in which the German activities concerning Gender Mainstreaming as well as the importance of gender aspects in the North will be presented to an international audience. genanet/LIFE will be present in this meeting.

New (and not so new) documents, recommended websites
- A new fact sheet on “Climate Change, Health and Gender”, elaborated by LIFE for the respective WECF working group can be downdoaded on the genanet website. It will be published as well on the WECF webpage in short time.

- A very good overview on the role of women in the agricultural sector in Europe can be found on http://europa.eu.int/comm/agriculture/publi/women/spotlight/text_en.pdf. It is entitled “Agriculture: The Spotlight on Women”. It was published in 2002, and offers valuable information and data e.g. on women as workforce on farms, women as managers of agricultural holdings, women on specialist farms, etc. in the European context.

- The World Conservation Union IUCN has a very good website on „Gender and Environment“, that presents itself as: „learning community dedicated to research, documentation and exchange of experiences, that promote the mainstreaming of gender equity perspective in environmental management initiatives“. You can find it on http://www.generoyambiente.org/EN/entrada.phtml. It is a site with news, information about gender methodologies, studies, etc., interesting for „gender work“ in the South and North.

- Talking about Gender Mainstreaming in general:
Recent data about the share of women in national parliaments (including a list of countries with percentage of women in their parliament, the respective regulations, that support the participation of women and strategical steps to enhance it), can be found as fact sheet entitled: „Getting the Balance right in National Parliaments“ on http://www.wedo.org/5050/5050factsheet4.pdf.

- A European conference on "Women and men in an enlarged Europe" was organised by the EU Unit on Equality for women and men in Malta. This conference took place short before the enlargement of the 1st of May 2004 and focused on how to promote equality between women and men in the enlarged Union, by using the various instruments available at European level, such as gender equality legislation, mainstreaming of gender equality in employment and social inclusion policies, the intervention of the Structural Funds. The conference gathered together around 250 people from all Member States and Candidate Countries, representing governments, social partners, NGOs and civil society. Information, such as conference papers, etc. can be found on:     http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/equ_opp/malte_en.htm

- You can download four Reports on 'Gender Assessment of the Impact of EU Accession on the Status of Women in the Labour Market in CEE' from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland on www.karat.org/eu_and_economy/gender_assessments.html