It has been six years since the first United Nations conference on Financing for Development (FfD) and women are still the poorest of the poor-more than two-thirds of the one billion people living on less than $1.00 day are women and children.

And though we hear again and again from the UN Secretary-General, from the World Bank, from all sorts of development experts that investing in women is essential to development, we don't see the actions necessary for improving the lives of women-an achievement that would benefit the whole of society.

Today, women make only 25% of the global income and own 1% of the land. In most of the world, unpaid family and household care still rests on women. It is estimated that this unremunerated, invisible work amounts to 10-30% of world GDP, in the trillions of dollars.

This year's meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) held in March zeroed in on the critical issue of financing for gender equality, in anticipation of the second FfD conference to be held in Doha this November.

A large number of ministers of women's agencies and thousands of women activists from around the world came to the meeting with a resounding message: commitments to women's equality made at previous UN development conferences are not being implemented because of a lack of genuine political will. 

Women have long understood that these commitments will only be met if they are backed up by adequate financial resources. Together, we are pushing for governments to dig into their pockets and deliver the necessary funds.

READ MORE

June Zeitlin, Executive Director

Q:  Your resolve to take action on climate change has led you to develop a Green Economy Agenda. You also work with local governments to shape their response to global climate change. What has motivated you to take on climate change in your office, and what sort of obstacles do you face in promoting green policies?

A. As daunting a challenge as global climate change can seem, it is also an opportunity to connect women in the U.S. to women across the world. Today in the U.S. it is very easy to flip the channel on your television if you are confronted by a disturbing image so that you don't have to think about the role we play. But with climate change it is much harder to do. As people begin to learn more about it, they begin to care more. Climate change presents an opportunity for people to become empowered in making decisions big and small. A small decision might be changing the kind of light bulb you use; a big one might be saying you won't reelect politicians unless they are willing to make changes.

It is interesting. There have been fewer obstacles to working on climate change issues than you would think. When I went to the annual National Lieutenant Governors Association and convinced colleagues to sign on to a bold statement on climate change, I had to think, how am I going to get broad majority support for this, and in particular bi-partisan support? So I started by working with the Republican Lt. Governor of Florida. I learned a fascinating lesson-that on the issue of climate change, there is tremendous potential to unite in new ways and under new leadership.

The launch took place during the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), where the under-resourcing of gender equality within the UN was touted as evidence for the lack of a genuine commitment to women's empowerment. The 2006 budget for UNIFEM at $57 million is only 10 percent of UNFPA's budget of close to $600 million and only a tiny fraction of the $2.7 billion available to UNICEF and $3.5 billion available to UNDP. 

"We believe it is well-demonstrated that the lack of a strong, well-resourced women's entity with normative and operational responsibilities, and an effective presence at country level, led by an Under Secretary General, has impeded the advancement of gender equality and the empowerment of women," said June Zeitlin, WEDO Executive Director.

The Financing for Development consultative process is now in full swing with the official conference to begin November 29 in Doha, Qatar. Women's rights and economic justice advocates are working to ensure that the Doha outcome document does more to address feminized poverty, environmental crises and global economic inequities than the Monterrey Consensus did in 2002. The draft document will be released in July, with member state reactions and negotiations beginning in early September. Several events have already been held, allowing governments, UN agencies, civil society and the private sector to present their perspectives and recommendations on the various areas of the financing for development agenda. The Women's Working Group on FfD will advocate and participate in each remaining event of the official consultative process.