WOMEN'S ENVIRONMENT &
DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006
Following up the World Summit
By Nadia Johnson, Economic and Social Justice Coordinator 
In the wake of the United Nations 2005 World Summit (September 14-16, 2005) governments and advocates are now focusing on the follow-up to commitments made in September. At the UN, last fall the General Assembly focused mainly on creating the new mechanisms agreed to at the Summit, with delegations negotiating the structure, function and modalities for the Peace-building Commission (PBC) and the Human Rights Council. Advocates have been monitoring developments in both processes, pushing for mechanisms to ensure the full and meaningful participation of civil society not only in the negotiating process but, by extension, the operation of the new bodies once they go into effect.
After further consultations, the GA resolution on the Peace-building Commission was agreed in mid-December, meeting its target timetable of being operational by December 31, 2005. Women’s groups monitoring the process are pleased that in the five-page final resolution, in the preamble member states stress the importance of women’s “equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security and the need to increase their role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution and peace-building.” Paragraph 21 calls upon the PBC “to integrate a gender perspective into all its work.” Both of these references reinforce the goals agreed upon in Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on women and peacemaking. Further, the final resolution also includes reference to the important contribution of civil society, and women in particular, in peace-building efforts.
In terms of roles and responsibilities, it has been agreed that the PBC will be an advisory subsidiary organ of the General Assembly and the Security Council, the first of its kind. The General Assembly will have overall responsibility for reviewing its work. The Commission will have an important role in giving advice to the Security Council on the planning and commencement of peace-building activities. It will work with ECOSOC to ensure the international community and donors maintain interest in a post-conflict country even after it has dropped from the headlines. Civil society will have a consultative relationship.
Less agreement has been reached on the Human Rights Council since issues related to the Council’s membership, size, mandate and more are still in dispute. The latest negotiated text was submitted by the HRC Co-Chairs—Ambassador Arias of Panama and Ambassador Kumalo of South Africa—on December 19, 2005. Governments will resume negotiations on January 11, 2006 and many hope to reach agreement quickly, so that the new Council is in place when the Human Rights Commission convenes its 61st and possibly last session in Geneva from March 14-April 22, 2006. But the U.S. Ambassador, John Bolton, has further complicated negotiations by demanding that all five permanent members of the Security Council be guaranteed seats regardless of their human rights records.
Women have pressed for governments to ensure the HRC strengthens civil society participation in the UN human rights mechanisms and retains some key aspects of the Human Rights Commission such as special rapporteurs. Further, women are demanding that the specificity of content in reports that have gone to Committees on race (CERD), children (CRC), women (CEDAW) and other bodies are retained, noting it imperative that any report streamlining “maintain processes through which governments will have to report on these areas in the same level of detail”
Women at the World Summit
Ten years after 189 governments adopted the Beijing Platform for Action at the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in China, women’s rights advocates hoped and expected that its implementation would be accomplished or well underway. Yet with implementation largely becoming more elusive than achieved, many women advocates worldwide paid considerable attention when heads of governments from around the world—the overwhelming majority of whom are men—met for the 2005 World Summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York in September. The 2005 World Summit was yet another crucial avenue of engagement for monitoring and advocating implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, the ICPD Programme of Action, and other significant international policy agreements won by women in the past decade.
The aim of the 2005 World Summit was to reach consensus on a package of proposals linking human rights, development and peace and security along with strengthening the UN through reform. In the months leading up to the Summit, advocates in every region highlighted what was at stake for women in a list of demands to governments related to the critical issues on the table at the World Summit—Development, Peace and Security, Human Rights and UN Reform.
To a certain extent the hard work paid off—advocates did achieve some modest gains on gender equality. The MDG on women’s empowerment and gender equality has been expanded from an original focus on primary education to include pledges to end impunity for violence against women, ensure universal access to reproductive health and the right to own and inherit property, provide equal access to labor protections and increase representation of women in government decision-making bodies. Also positive for women were promises to implement Security Council Resolution 1325, which promotes women’s increased participation in peace and security processes, and to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Another concrete gain is a commitment to double the budget for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Nonetheless, advocates were left lamenting the lack of meaningful, action-oriented agreements on the total package under debate. “Women’s groups have been dismayed by a shameful lack of political will on the part of governments to tackle poverty, foster peace and ensure human rights,” said a statement issued by a consortium of advocates monitoring the Summit.
Throughout the process, advocates faced obstacles from several governments, the United States in particular. Thrown into contention with the late arrival of John Bolton, the controversial presidential pick for US Ambassador to the UN who insisted on hundreds of last-minute amendments and reneged on past commitments, the Summit failed to make any serious commitment to key economic issues and to UN reform—matters of critical importance to women and their families everywhere. The US and a few other wealthy nations refused to commit to a timeframe for increasing official development assistance to 0.7 percent of GNP. (Currently the US gives 0.16 percent, tied for the lowest percentage of GNP with Italy, and gives a paltry three cents in aid to Africa of every $100.00 GNP.) Moreover the US and a handful of allies blocked any meaningful agreement on trade and even watered down further the already weak provisions on climate changes. As already noted, PBC, HRC and UN reform specifics were left for future negotiation.