On 11-12Feb, Maria Lee, WOCAN Consultant, participated in theAsia-Pacific Civil Society Consultation for the 20-Year Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and for the 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, organized by UN Women and UNESCAP.The objective of the Consultation was to provide a forum for civil society working in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment across Asia-Pacific, to review achievements, identify common areas of concern and recommend priority actions for implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Asia and the Pacific.
The meeting started with introductory messages from Ms. Roberta Clarke, Regional Director of UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and Ms. Nanda Krairiksh, Director of the Social Development Division of ESCAP. Both recognized that MDGs represented a failure of ambition and that there was a need to move forward with a gender equality stand-alone goal as well as gender mainstreaming across all goals. While we can expect resistance in building a new agenda for gender equality, Ms. Roberta Clarke reminded participants that change towards social justice comes with the three As – advocacy, activism and accountability.
The Consultation resulted with a Declaration delivered at the Asia-Pacific Regional Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which took place right after the Consultation (12 to 13 February 2014). The Declaration included the following key messages:
1. This must be the era of ACCOUNTABILITY. Strong normative standards and commitments exist but these commitments are rarely implemented and discarded at the altar of economic growth and political power.
2. A new development framework must be TRANSFORMATIVE. It must address the structural caucuses of inequality and marginalisation. It must address the convergence of the pernicious effects of globalisation, militarism and conflict and fundamentalisms that particularly target women’s bodies and livelihoods.
3. The framework must include a strong stand-alone GENDER GOAL that addresses root causes of rights violations, and gender must be integrated throughout the framework.
4. The post2015 agenda must include an INEQUALITIES GOAL that aims to reduce inequalities of wealth, power, resources and opportunities between states, between rich and poor within states and between men and women. This goal must ignite macro-economic reform at the global and national level.
5. A new development agenda must address the CLIMATE CRISIS and the cause of the climate crisis – a refusal to limit production and consumption, particularly in the developed world.
6. The new development agenda must be underpinned by the principles of HUMAN RIGHTS and the RIO PRINCIPLES.
7. New global PARTNERSHIPS must result in strengthened partnerships amongst citizenry – that is citizens and those they charge with delivering sustainable development – their governments.
The Preparatory Meeting brought together senior-level representatives from government ministries and departments directly involved in the formulation and implementation of national policies on gender equality and women’s empowerment and who will serve as members of their national delegations to the 58th session of the CSW.
The participants of the Consultation agreed on the need to set up a ‘steering committee’ to coordinate CSO’s engagement in the Beijing + 20 regional review process and post-2015 development agenda. A preliminary list of voluntary organizations was proposed to represent the diversity of stakeholders and issues of the region. WOCAN proposed to be included to support the issues of rural women/agriculture and climate change.