“Never Give In, Never Give Up“- Bella Abzug, WEDO Founder

In light of recent events, WEDO is proud to once again stand with Planned Parenthood and reaffirm our commitment to the promotion of women’s rights around the world.

Today, Take a Stand for Women’s Health!

Add your name to –> “Stand With Planned Parenthood”

Bella Abzug at Women's Liberation Day Parade, 1970

Images via Life Magazine and Planned Parenthood.

“People are at the center of our vision of sustainable development.”

Today, January 30th 2012, the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability released its final report Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing. The Panel, launched on August 9th 2010, has spent the last few months conducting consultations with an array of Government, civil society and private sector experts aimed to “formulate a new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity, along with mechanisms for achieving it.” [See WEDO's input at March 2011 GSP Interactive Panel]. Their efforts reflect the long term vision set out in the 1987 report of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), entitled Our Common Future, and better known as the Brundtland Report. 25 years later, Resilient People, Resilient Planet, attempts to address why sustainable development has not become a practical reality. The report concludes with 56 recommendations which outline “concrete proposals in three key areas: empowering people to make sustainable choices, working towards a sustainable economy, and strengthening institutional governance to support sustainable development.” The Panel hopes that these recommendations can feed into the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), as well as other inter-governmental processes.

The report lays out the long-term vision of the Panel: “to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and make growth inclusive and production and consumption more sustainable, while combating climate change and respecting a range of other planetary boundaries.” [pg.6] An interesting aspect of the report is a focus on “sustainable choices”, which is reflected in the title of the piece itself. The section on “Empowering people to make sustainable choices” [s. III] concludes that unsustainable choices and behaviors are often consequences of a lack of “human rights, basic needs, human security and human resilience” that preclude individuals from having “real choice”. [para55] The report states that in order to empower people to make sustainable choices, we must first and foremost deliver on the fundamentals of development: “international commitments to eradicate poverty, promote human rights and human security, and advance gender equality.” [para56a]

Another key focus of the report is creating a “new political economy” [para13], which takes into account the environmental, social and economic costs of both action and inaction, which values “environmental externalities”, and which measures growth and prosperity with a new set of sustainable development indicators that go beyond GDP.

Gender Equality in A Future Worth Choosing

A strong emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment can be found throughout the report. In her address to the Secretary-General, GSP co-chair President Halonen of Finland, particularly stressed the importance of placing people, and women, at the centre of achieving sustainable development. “Eradication of poverty and improving equity must remain priorities for the world community,” noted President Halonen. “The Panel has concluded that empowering women and ensuring a greater role for them in the economy is critical for sustainable development.”

The report has a total of 77 references to women and 31 to gender. Advancing gender equality is recognized as a fundamental prerequisite for development. Women’s leadership and economic empowerment is mentioned in relation to advancing women’s decision-making and political participation, breaking down barriers to women’s rights in terms of land ownership and inheritance, improved access to family planning and reproductive health services, and a shift in social behaviors among men and women towards greater equality.[para66a,b,c] The report also recognizes women’s important role as small farmers in developing a gender-sensitive sustainable agricultural revolution. [para107]

Much work is still to come to analyze this report and its potential entry-points into the Rio+20 negotiations. WEDO welcomes your inputs and comments.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s statement from the GSP launch event can be found here:
http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=5831

“Following a more sustainable path will enhance human well-being, further global justice, strengthen gender equity, and preserve the Earth’s life support systems for future generations.” [pg.3]

New York– January 27th, 2011

If climate change policies are going to be effective, women have to be at the negotiating table. Established in 2009 by WEDO, the Global Gender Climate Alliance (GGCA), and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) with the support of the Government of Finland, the Women Delegates Fund (WDF) supports the participation and leadership of women at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations.

Since it’s inception, the WDF has worked with a group of core participants to strengthen leadership capabilities by enhancing the delegates’ knowledge and skills with training in media, communications, and negotiations. These WDF sessions have brought together women from around the world, women who are all working to ensure that women’s rights and human rights remain central to climate change policy.

“Empower Women, Impact Climate” details the stories of four amazing participants in the WDF. In the brochure, you will meet Patience, an “officially retired” activist from Ghana; Ulamila, who works on behalf of women in the extremely climate vulnerable Pacific Islands; Meena, a women in the overwhelmingly male Nepalese government; and Judie, one of the first women to run for President of Haiti. Their stories of achievement, perseverance, and continued activism serve as inspirations to us all.

Click here to read more about these remarkable participants in the Women Delegates Fund.

New York– January 26th, 2012

Intervention by the Women’s Major Group on the Zero Draft meeting, 26 January 2012

Thank you chair, my name is Azra from Pakistan, working with women farmers. I represent the women’s major group.

The zero-draft fails to raise our enthusiasm, it lacks ambition, concrete proposals for global instruments necessary to address the shortcomings of the last 20 years, concrete targets and time lines and funding mechanisms. The emerging crisis of climate change increases the urgency for an outcome document that reflects the urgent need for environmental justice.

Many women’s lives and livelihoods suffer from the current injustices. We feel that the sections 1 and 2 should strongly voice the failure of the neo-liberal system, where corporate interests have priority over human lives – and should acknowledge that small adjustments are not enough. A major paradigm shift is necessary.  

The zero draft, however, continues to use the term growth, instead of sustainable development. It also mentions “structural adjustment” policies, which have been propagated by the IMF and led to privatisation, commodification of nature, social inequity and hunger. 

We welcome the paragraphs on Gender Equality, and we acknowledge the strong support from many of the Member States for this issue. But, gender equality is integral to sustainable development and ought to be part of the Vision statement, as well. 

The entire section on gender would be strengthened by moving it to the beginning of section V, before paragraph 64, so that it applies to the entire section. We have specific proposals for strengthening the gender equality language, which should include a reference to women’s rights as human rights and concrete targets. 

Issues of land, energy and food are crucial to women.  Women produce much of the world’s food but also disproportionally experience negative impacts from the extractive sector and from agroindustry – landgrabbing, agrofuels, mining, poisoning with pesticides. Measures to ensure food sovereignty for local communities will support production of their own healthy, nutritious food, and reduce dependency on the agro-chemical industry and food dumping from the North. 

We are concerned by a major gap in the Zero Draft – there is no section on Health and Wellbeing, whereas Rio 1992 strongly addressed environmental health. A section on health is important for women to ensure, for example, protection from reproductive damage from the nuclear and chemical industry, as well as sexual and reproductive rights and health. 

A new Council for Sustainable Development would need concrete global instruments for women and girls to obtain redress. Such as a special rapporteur or an ombudsperson or an international court on the environment

We note several issues we would like to see agreed to at Rio+20:

1. The Social Protection Floor including access to free medical care and education is vital to women who make up the majority of the poor.
2. Global implementation of Rio Principle 10 on access to information, justice and participation to ensure that corruption and abuse do not continue to hamper transition to equitable and sustainable societies.
3. The precautionary and polluter-pays principles need to be fully implemented, therefore:
4. An independent technology assessment and monitoring body at the global level is critical. In my country we have seen the great damage from technologies such as GMOs aimed to enrich corporations and bind local farmers in dependence. I am proud that Pakistan has banned many of Monsanto’s activities. But many other technologies are threatening our lives and livelihoods, from nanotechnology to geo-engineering.

We count on you, Governments, to support the women of the world, to ensure our human rights and our full participation in equitable and sustainable societies. Thank you Chairs!

Response to the Zero Draft – Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)[1]

The Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)[2] is closely following progress toward the Rio+20 conference, with an eye on aspects that will protect women’s rights and advance gender equality and sustainable development. It is from this perspective WEDO makes the following comments on the Zero Draft.

WEDO applauds the efforts of governments and civil society to contribute to the process, and appreciates the efforts of the co-chairs to compile and synthesize the hundreds of submissions into the Zero Draft Document, “The Future We Want.” In its current form, however, the Zero Draft does not reflect the future we actually want. WEDO is deeply concerned about the lack of urgency and ambition expressed in the document, particularly in the preamble or ‘vision’; the continued side-lining of the social pillar and human rights in relation to the intensive focus on green economy and growth; and the missing mechanisms for implementation and accountability. The future we want would be reflected in an outcome of Rio+20 that is forward-looking, action-oriented and concrete; the Zero Draft reads as a catch-all for many things and yet does little to carve a concrete path for ‘the future we want.’

Today’s multiple crises (climate, fuel, food, financial, etc.,) together with intensification of resource use and unsustainable consumption and production patterns, call for bold, collaborative and decisive action. Achieving sustainable development – given the lack of implementation of the sustainable development framework and integration of the three pillars, particularly of the social pillar – requires a transformation of current patterns, with support from the highest level and clear financial means to jump start the transformation. The responsibilities of developed countries should be clarified, beyond capacity building and technology transfer, to support a societal transformation across economy, environment and human behavior.

Gender equality should be integrated in the text as it really is: a prerequisite for achieving truly sustainable development and a critical cross-cutting issue. It must be integrated, therefore, as part of the guiding vision, as a stand-alone issue framing implementation actions and as a backbone for the elaboration of sustainable development goals in the post-2015 development framework. Now is the time to construct and invest in a framework for true progress, building on the foundations of twenty years ago, particularly the Rio Principles and Agenda 21.

WEDO acknowledges that progress has been made in numerous areas to advance gender equality across UN system programmes, government policies and wide civil society action since 1992, including in recent advances in UN Reform with the creation of UN Women and in the three Rio Conventions. However, advancing gender equality and realizing women’s rights and meaningfully implementing sustainable development requires systemic change across the three interlinked pillars. WEDO calls upon all stakeholders to invest in the Rio+20 process and support a revitalized, reformed and strengthened structure with specific actions to initiate the change.

Click here to download WEDO’s recommendations for improvement of or inclusion of gender language text of the January 10, 2012 version of the Rio+20 “The Future We Want” zero-draft outcome document. Recommended language is in bold. Comments are bold and italicized.

[2] WEDO is a women’s global advocacy organization working toward a just world that promotes and protects human rights, gender equality and the integrity of the environment. Find more at www.wedo.org.

The Commission on the Status of Women will hold the fifty-sixth session of their multi-year program, February 27th to March 9th 2012 at the United Nations in New York. The priority theme for this meeting is the Empowerment of Rural Women. Some key points of discussion will include agriculture, productive resources and financing, infrastructure, natural change resource management, climate adaptation and policies on rural development.

In preparation for 2012, UN Women in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) convened at an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) held September 20-23, 2011 in Accra, Ghana. To organize the information for discussion at this EGM technical background documents were formulated, creating concise studies on Rural women and development in many sectors. WEDO had the pleasure of being a key point of information in one of these technical background papers titled CEDAW, Rural Women and Climate Change .

Additional documents featured at the Expert Group Meeting:

New York– January 10th, 2012

The Zero Draft outcome document – the official document to be negotiated by United Nations Member States in the lead up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) – was released today. The text will be extensively negotiated in the coming months towards a final outcome in Rio+20.

In its present state, the Zero Draft contains the following references to women and gender:

[Food security]
64.     We reaffirm the right to food and call upon all States to prioritize sustainable intensification of food production through increased investment in local food production, improved access to local and global agri-food markets, and reduced waste throughout the supply chain, with special attention to women, smallholders, youth, and indigenous farmers.

[Gender equality]
102.    We recognize that sustainable development is linked to and depends on women’s economic contributions, both formal and informal. We note with concern that persistent social and economic inequities continue to affect women and children, who make up the majority of those living in poverty.

103.    We call for removing barriers that have prevented women from being full participants in the economy and unlocking their potential as drivers of sustainable development, and agree to prioritize measures to promote gender equality in all spheres of our societies, including education, employment, ownership of resources, access to justice, political representation, institutional decision-making, care giving and household and community management.

104.    We support the work of UN Women in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women in all aspects of life and bringing greater attention to the linkages between gender equality and the promotion of sustainable development.

It also proposes the much talked about “Sustainable Development Goals“:

107. We propose that the Sustainable Development Goals should include sustainable consumption and production patterns as well as priority areas such as oceans; food security and sustainable agriculture; sustainable energy for all; water access and efficiency; sustainable cities; green jobs, decent work and social inclusion; and disaster risk reduction and resilience.

Much analysis will be done on this document over the next week as Governments and Civil Society react to the document — both what it contains and what was left out.

Submissions on the Zero Draft

A very useful tool in the analysis of what the “Future We Want” actually looks like is the search feature of the Compilation Document of the UNCSD website. You can quickly search by keyword to see how many submissions mentioned the issues you care about. For example, a quick search on “gender” reveals there were 903 occurrences of the word across 149 submissions, the top being:

• United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) (166 occurrences)
• Women’s Major Group (143 occurrences)
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (28 occurrences)
• International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)(27 occurrences)
• United Nations Environment Management Group (EMG)(26 occurrences)
• Japan (25 occurrences)
• Japanese Stakeholders for the Promotion of Sustainable Development (23 occurrences)
• Japan Women’s Watch (JAWW)(22 occurrences)
• The Feminist Task Force  (FTF) from the Global Action Against Poverty(GCAP) (21 occurrences)
• World Bank, IPPF, Brazil, UNDP, El Salvador, DAWN, DPI, Serbia, Stakeholder Forum, ILO (16 to 6)

A similar search for “women” produces 2,108 occurences in 228 submissions, the top being:

• Women’s Major Group (555 occurrences)
• United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) (326 occurrences)
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)(43 occurrences)
• International Planned Parenthood Federation(38 occurrences)
• Japan Women’s Watch (JAWW)(36 occurrences)
• International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)(36 occurrences)
• Population and Climate Change Alliance (PCCA)(32 occurrences)
• South Asia Women’s Network (SWAN)(30 occurrences)
• Ye Ethiopia Wiyen Mahber Be Alem(26 occurrences)
• Australia(25 occurrences)
• ECESA Plus Cluster on Social Development (25 occurrences)
• Oxfam(24 occurrences)
• Japan(24 occurrences)
• Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)(23 occurrences)
• World Youth Alliance(22 occurrences)
• UNDP, Serbia, DPI, Norway, World Bank, Global Compact, El Salvador

Happy Holidays from the WEDO family to yours!

While we celebrate our achievements in 2011 we are already planning for 2012- a year with some very significant milestones such as Rio+20 and WEDO’s 20th Anniversary! As we’ve been busy working hard in different parts of the world, our technology needs at home have been neglected the past few years. This holiday season, we’ve constructed a “WEDO Wish List” which will help us in achieving our goals in 2012!

……

• New Laptops/ Computers- 2011 has granted us a wonderful team of interns devoted to fundraising, advancing our social networking capabilities and keeping all of you informed on what we are working on. We are so fortunate to have a budding team of young human rights advocates, but some of our computers are a little outdated. A new laptop for the office would help enhance our communication and improve our research.

• Updated Software/ Website- Our advocacy work requires us to use many methods of communication to raise awareness on the linkages between women, environment and development. We write articles, draft text submissions, make presentations- and translate them all through our website and social media. Being able to keep our software and website up to date is crucial to our ability to get our message across effectively.

• A Nice Camera- As some of our staff is fortunate to travel the globe in pursuit of advancing human rights, there are many beautiful moments and settings they get to experience! A new camera would help us document all of the breathtaking places and remarkable people our team gets to travel to and work with so we can pass them on to you.

Of course, monetary donations are always on our wish list as well. Donations will go to support a wide range of WEDO’s core functioning- from office supplies and maintenance to covering the travel costs of our interns or sending a WEDO staff member to attend an important event. We are so appreciative of a contribution- however large or small it may be, it always helps!

To donate, please click here. If you would like to donate specifically to one of the items listed above, please write this in the “Designation” box on the form. You may also write to Bridget Burns, bridget@wedo.org, to inquire about making specific donations.

By providing us with some of the things on our wish list, we can continue to work towards our goals of advancing women’s leadership, ensuring good global governance and achieving sustainable development.

Thank you for your continued support and friendship!

Wishing you peace, joy, happiness and health in 2012,

The WEDO Team

WEDO congratulates the first winner of the 2011 SEED Gender Equality Award, “Solid Waste Management and Community Mobilization Program” from Nepal, as well as the other thirty-five SEED award winners. The Gender Equality Award is funded by UN Women.

The “Solid Waste Management and Community Mobilization Program” is a waste collection and recycling initiative of over 1,000 households and businesses and is run by a women’s environment committee and supported by a local municipality. Under the initiative, landfill waste is reduced via recycling and biogas plants are fueled by organic waste on which training is provided. A savings and credit cooperative has also been established to mobilise loans to 150 female members. 

To read more about SEED and this year’s winners, click here.

Friday, December 16th 2011

Since the COP17 climate talks ended at around 5am last Sunday in Durban, South Africa, many people have been asking the same question: was it a success? Analysts from government, media and NGOs seem to be taking one of two stances: “it was a good step forward” (for example, the official UNFCCC Press Release: “Durban conference delivers breakthrough in international community’s response to climate change”) or “it failed to deliver what is needed” (as in the WWF Press Release: “Governments fail on ambition, courage at UN climate change talks”)

At WEDO, an organization that has pushed for gender issues to be integrated throughout the climate debates for a number of years, we have been asking ourselves how to measure both the successes and failures of COP17.

In our recap of the first week in Durban, we pondered the increased “buzz” around the linkages between gender and climate change, which percolated the side events and stands at COP17, and what real effect this would have on an outcome. We questioned whether the many good words spoken at the 30+ women and gender-related side events and high-level activities would actually inspire meaningful action. Isn’t this the point, after all? Turning words (and lots of them) into action to save our planet? Isn’t that the key indicator of success?

Part of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA), at COP17 WEDO continued to coordinate an advocacy team that spent the better part of two weeks running from meeting to meeting at the ICC, providing text suggestions to delegates, holding side events, etc., all to make sure that women and gender equality issues were being taken into account in the draft texts. In her excellent article Negotiating gender-sensitive Climate Policy, advocacy team partner, Agnes Otzelberger from CARE International, aptly described this work “…we have been populating the aisles around the inner sanctums of the climate talks, getting hold of the latest drafts and submitting suggested amendments to ensure text includes the term ‘gender-sensitive’. Packaged in this term is the ambition for global responses to climate change to include, benefit and reflect the needs and priorities of poor men and women worldwide – in other words, to ensure these responses do not perpetuate or widen gender inequalities by missing out on large parts of the people who are part of the solution.”

And in Durban, there was some success in that respect: references to women and gender were secured across several areas— in countries’ guidelines for National Adaptation Plans (NAPs); in the Nairobi Work Programme that assesses impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change; information systems on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+); and in the operationalization of the Cancún Agreements, including the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Committee, the Standing Committee on Finance, and the Technology Mechanism. [Click here for a full compilation of women and gender references.]

Achieving references to gender in both the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Technology Centre and Network represent significant progress, as these were often areas where gender considerations – and moreover social considerations – had been largely ignored. Wide collaborative advocacy and coordinated activism – by organizations such as WEDO, ENERGIA, Gender Action, Heinrich Boell, Oxfam, ABANTU, CARE International, GACCES, Equidad de Genero, VIDS, the UNDP Gender Team, UN Women, and the partners of the Women and Gender Constituency, to name just a few – supported many ally governments to make this advancement toward gender equality an outcome of Durban worthy of celebration.

But can we deem “The Durban Package” a success? As the problems of climate change become ever more urgent, the UNFCCC process, which itself is dependent on the political will of countries to address these issues, has resulted in another delay to real solutions. In the early morning of December 11^th, two days after the talks were scheduled to conclude, countries agreed upon a process from 2012 to 2015 to “develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the UNFCCC applicable to all Parties” which would come into effect after 2020. The legally binding agreement which many had hoped to achieve in 2009 at COP15 has now been pushed to 2015. Climate Action Tracker estimates that the current level of ambition towards cutting emissions will result in a 3.5°C increase in global mean temperatures by 2100 and essentially guarantee a temperature increase of 2°C. This will result in irreversible ecosystem changes affecting the lives of billions of individuals.

What has yet to be seen are true and ambitious efforts to develop an agreement that will save the lives of the millions of women and men who are already suffering the impacts of climate change and the generations to come who will suffer even more. Tireless work to ensure women’s rights and gender equality remain at the heart of climate policy is severely diminished – perhaps even worthless – if words cannot be turned into real action.

At the end of the day, it is hard to measure successes or failures if none of the efforts of this process actually help to improve the lives of the people most severely impacted by climate change. We have now seen two COPs after Copenhagen “successfully” save the process, but unfortunately for all of us, we’re running out of time to actually save the lives of billions of people, to protect our environment and to ensure our future.