DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006
50/50 Turns Five
By Doris Mpoumou, Gender and Governance Coordinator 
Equal participation of women and men in decision-making gets the top billing at this year’s session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women providing the perfect opportunity for WEDO and its partners to assess the impact of the global 50/50 campaign launched in 2000. The 50th CSW session, to be held from February 27 through March 10, will also focus on “…an enabling environment for achieving gender equality and the advancement of women (in) the fields of education, health and work.”
The Global 50/50 Campaign seeks to increase women’s participation in all decision-making processes worldwide, with an emphasis on national parliaments . In the five years since it was launched by WEDO the campaign has been endorsed by nearly 300 organizations across the globe and 18 national and regional campaign launches have taken place. Most notably, the number of countries reaching the UN-designated 30 percent critical mass of women national parliaments has doubled from 10 in June 2000 to 21 in September 2005, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. And, it is now a matter of record that this increase is due to governments and political parties adopting one or all of three key mechanisms recommended by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action—quotas for women, campaign subsidies, and the system of proportional representation.
2005 encouraging signs but numbers still low
In 2005 we found much to celebrate, particularly the rise of powerful women in Africa and Latin America—like in Liberia where Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, ex-World Bank and well known supporter of women’s advancement, became Africa’s first elected woman head of government; or in Chile where Michelle Bachelet, a former political prisoner, physician and divorced mother whose ascent was not due to a politically powerful husband, was elected as the country’s first female president this month. And at the 2005 United Nations World Summit (New York, 14 -16 June 2005), world leaders recommitted to increase the number of women represented in local and national parliaments.
The 50/50 campaign is not just about numbers . It is also about women who can make a difference; women with progressive women’s human rights agenda that can transform “malestream” politics into a development agenda for the common good. For instance in Denmark, Finland and Sweden women’s right to economic independence and to combine work and family obligations benefits children, men and women; in South Africa, women parliamentarians have been able to secure gender sensitive national budgets that more effectively target resources to women and the poor, as noted in the WEDO primer, “Getting the Balance Right in National Parliaments”
"But i n spite" of such encouraging signs, women still hold a dismal global average of just 15 percent of seats in parliaments around the world.
Assessing 50/50 at CSW
Against this background WEDO and its 50/50 partners will convene a global meeting of women activists, parliamentarians and political party leaders from all regions of the world in New York prior to the 50 th session of the CSW to assess the campaign and plan future strategy. The focus will be on identifying strategies that work; documenting the ways elected women have been able to promote policies that empower women, particularly poor women; and developing a plan for expanding the Campaign’s reach.
WEDO anticipates that the outcomes of the meeting will serve as advocacy points to influence the CSW session.
Other CSW business
At this year’s session of CSW, the 45 member governments of the Commission will adopt the 2007 to 2011 work program. This multi-year program defines the Beijing Platform-related thematic areas on which the Commission will focus. Last November, the Division for the Advancement of Women organized two priority-setting consultations—one with expert representatives from regional groups and one with New York based UN-accredited organizations .
Four main issue themes emerged from the regional networks consultations—Women, Peace and Security, Women’s Rights, Women and the Economy and Women and the Media. Some of the critical issues raised in the New York meeting were financing for development, micro-financing, women in decision-making, conflict resolution and trafficking, men and boys, and the Commission’s working methods.
The CSW session will also re-examine how the Commission does its work. Up until now the emphasis has been on negotiating outcomes—or so-called “agreed conclusions”—as opposed to meaningful dialog on Platform implementation. Agreed conclusions may still have their place especially with respect to new and emerging issues. But the annual CSW, which always draws record numbers of gender experts, women’s advocates and governmental representatives, provides the best opportunity for sharing best practices, exchanging ideas, identifying new and emerging issues, and discussing problems and solutions. It is to be hoped that the opportunity for advancing implementation in this unique forum is not squandered yet again.