Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
Fifty-second Session, February 25 – March 7, 2008
Financing for gender equality and for the
empowerment of women
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) took place at the UN Headquarters from 25 February to March 7, 2008 with the theme “Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of Women”. In all 1907 individual NGOs from 322 organizations attended the event. There were women all over the place at the UN and outside UN and most conference rooms were overflowing. If one did not reach the place in time there was no more space and people had to stand on the sides. The topic generated a lot of interest for many organizations. 101 governments also participated in the session.
The Consultation Day Program – Financing for Success and Security took place prior to the Commission on 24 February at New York Medical Center. In the afternoon there were eight breakout sessions covering the following topics:
1. Gender Budgeting: Making Women Visible
2. Innovative Funding for Women’s Organizations
3. Strengthening International Financial Commitments
4. Fostering women’s Entrepreneurship
5. Advocacy Strategies: Financing Women’s Empowerment
6. Violence Against women
7. Gender Equality Architecture
Philo Morris chaired No: 2 “Innovative Funding for Women’s Organizations”. There were over 100 women present for this session and had a very enthusiastic session and made a number of recommendations at the plenary on the same day. Two small meetings took place during the Commission as a follow up to this breakout session. It also provided excellent venue for women with needs to meet women with resources. Grail was one of the lead groups that took a lot of interest in this topic and is currently working out on a project for bringing about peace in Kenya.
The Secretary-General launching a multi-year campaign to end violence against women, made an urgent call to world leaders and lawmakers and all stakeholders to work together to end violence against women. Speaking at the opening session he said: “Violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable and never tolerable”. Hundreds of people blew whistles in unison to signify the start of the campaign.
For the morning NGO briefing the Ambassador of Belgium who was the chair of the commission came everybody, which showed the close relationship between Commission members and the NGOs.
“Group of 77” developing countries and China, said human development and growth that was sustainable must involve the participation and contribution of all people. A few of the challenges to mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment included the feminization of poverty,
lack of access to resources, few women on financial and economic boards and the inadequate financing of programs that affected the lives of women.
Commission speakers said that women’s full participation in conflict prevention, peace building is needed to end use of sexual violence as weapon, and ensure legal rights. Chief Advisor of United Nations Development Fund for women (UNIFEM) said that the use of sexual and gender-based violence as a method of warfare was becoming increasingly systematic and widespread. There were two round tables during the session.
There were no agreed conclusions on the last day of the session, so the delegates continued to meet after the commission was over to come to a consensus.
The Commission recognized the importance of gender mainstreaming as a tool for achieving gender equality and to promote the mainstreaming of a gender perspective in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic and social spheres and to strengthen the capabilities of the United Nations system in the area of gender.
For a full report of the Commission please visit www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/52sess.htm
Report submitted to the Executive Committee members of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
Importance of Financing for Development (FFD) for Women’s Organizations and CSW-August 2007
Constant Focus on FFD by Women’s Organizations: Financing for Development deals with six major themes covering Resource mobilization nationally, internationally, Debt, Aid, Trade and Systemic Issues under which falls the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), the World Bank, (WB) and the World Trade Organization, (WTO) as well.
Policies that govern our world are set by Financial Institutions, who are active stakeholders in FFD and the decisions made and implemented have a direct bearing on all, particularly women in developing countries. So, in order to move forward it is very important and crucial that women engage in the FFD area to make an impact on the policies that nations follow. If there has to be forward movement in the women’s areas this would be impossible without forward movement in the FFD area. What is needed is a holistic approach.
It is important that CSW come up with small group or satellite wing that will follow up progress and monitor issues of FFD to enable making policies that are beneficial for women. FFD processes at the international and national level should be systematically followed. Financing of Gender Equality should be an issue on the agenda of women’s groups, committees and organizations at all future endeavors. Interest in FFD should not be limited to 2008 because of the theme, but needs to be an ongoing process, if the commitments made in the past are to be met.