UN NGLS - United Nations
Non-Governmental Liaison Service website Link for
DOHA 2008 International Conference
on Financing for Development:
______________________________________________________________________
Via IGTN - International Gender
& Trade Network - http://web.igtn.org/home/
Almost seven
years after the Monterrey Conference took place in March 2002, the United
Nations is convening the review of the Monterrey Consensus, the Financing for
Development's (FfD) final document.
The review conference will take place in Doha, Qatar, from 29 November to 2 December 2008 preceded by the Global Civil Society Forum that will take place 26 and 27 November.
____________________________________________________________
Doha 2008: Women’s Rights &
Gender Equality in Financing for Development
1. We, women from women’s rights organisations and networks gathered in
2. The
3. Women constitute the majority of people working in
flexible and informal sectors with often precarious working conditions. Thus,
in times of crisis they struggle harder to maintain their jobs and income
levels. At the same time, cuts in public service provision, including education
and health, increase the burden of unpaid and invisible work done mainly by
women. With the frequent fluctuations in prices, women are struggling to deal
with increased financial stress within households. Women in conflict situations
suffer more severely but are often left out of peace negotiation processes.
4. Past
experiences have shown that crises and neoliberal policies responses, such as
structural adjustment programmes
of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have disproportionately
affected women. Yet the very same misguided polices of market liberalization,
deregulation and privatization now continue to be promoted as the solution.
5. This
reality demonstrates that macroeconomic policies are not gender-neutral. This
means that any effort concerned with solving the crises or putting in place
real commitments to financing for development must challenge and overcome
gender injustice at all levels.
6. The
participation of women's networks and other civil society actors in the FfD
review process has been consistent, focused and aimed at ensuring that its
outcome strongly addresses the gaps in the Monterrey Consensus in ways that
affirmed commitments to women's rights and gender equality. From early on in
the process, we struggled against efforts by certain governments to reduce the
scope of the review and to further erode the significance of the FfD and the
United Nations in global economic governance. However, the rush to find
solutions to the global financial meltdown produced an exclusionary process
exemplified by the G20 Summit in
7.
We believe
that this Conference must build upon existing United Nations commitments to
gender equality and women’s human rights, based on the principle of mutual
responsibility and the obligations of governments to fulfil internationally
agreed development goals, targets and actions which have been identified
primarily in the Beijing Platform for Action, Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Labour
Organization Conventions.
8. In
this context, we welcome the recognition of gender equality as a fundamental
human right and an issue of social justice essential for economic growth,
poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and development effectiveness
as is stated in the new paragraph 3bis (as of November 25, 2008 draft).
However, we need not only a good preamble which acknowledges the need of gender
mainstreaming, we need policy action.
9. We
strongly stress the importance of concrete steps to increase resources for
gender equality as stated in paragraph 40bis (as of November 25, 2008 draft) to
fulfil women’s rights and empowerment. Also, in relation to mobilizing domestic
financial resources for development, paragraph 9bis (as of November 25, 2008
draft) is a commitment to eliminate gender-based discrimination acknowledging
women’s full and equal access to economic resources and the importance of
gender responsive public management. However, we demand stronger gender
equality policy commitments and
actions throughout the document on development, trade, finance, debt, aid and systemic issues.
10. We
reaffirm our commitment to keep fully engaged in all follow-up processes
stressing the need to convene a major international conference under the UN
auspices to undertake the structural issues that underpin international economy
and financial governance. All follow-up mechanisms must be effective spaces
for consistent and regular inputs on gender equality ensuring the participation
of women’s rights organizations and networks, and
gender equality advocates.
11. We call
on governments of UN member-states that are about to begin the meeting in Doha
to: (a) insist on the primacy of the United Nations as the site for an open
transparent and inclusive multi-stakeholder process providing institutional
spaces for women’s rights organizations and gender equality advocates in the
follow-up to the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus; (b) stress the
continuing need for undertaking a full and gender sensitive analysis of the
structural issues that underpin international economic and financial
governance; (c) seriously move forward in the follow-up to the implementation
of the Monterrey Consensus the general commitment to gender equality, analysis
and monitoring tools and indicators as proposed in the introductory section and
found in selected paragraphs of the Doha Declaration.
Women’s
groups that collaborated on this statement
AWID, IGTN, DAWN, WIDE,
ICAE, Women’s WG on FfD, Coordinadora Spain, Global Policy Forum, FEMNET,
NETRIGHT Ghana, ENLACE/
FTF-GCAP,
African Peace Network (APNET),
NETRIGHT/ ATWWAR, Venro, African Women's Network/ AWW/ AWEPON, Women
Environmental Programme -
Nigeria, ITUC, DAWN, FOKUS Forum for Women and Development, KOO, United Church
of Christ, German Foundation for World Population, Ag Miss/ FTF-GCAP, UBUNTU
Forum, AWEG, Women Resourced Advocacy Centre NAWU/APWW/ FTF-GCAP, Action Aid
UK, Action Aid.
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.