Lobbying for gender inclusiveness at the WSSD.

Publication: Our Rights

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COPYRIGHT 2002 African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)

African women's NGOs participating in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) hoped the ten-year anniversary of the Rio de Janeiro Summit (UNCED) would serve as a wake-up call on a wide range of development and sustainability issues. Despite some important gains, the Summit fell short of expectations. While the Plan of Implementation reaffirms some of the strongest ideas from Rio de Janeiro, the document did not specify clear responsibility or comprehensive targets and in many instances called only for voluntary action.

The women's caucus worked hard to make the Johannesburg negotiations respond to the world's most disadvantaged peoples. As women make up the majority of the world's poor and are key to natural resource management and poverty eradication, gender equality is essential to achieving sustainable development. Women's organising at UNCED secured 172 references to women, a strong chapter on women and recognition as one of the major groups. Women's efforts throughout the WSSD helped increase the number of gender references by 30, but many of these simply reaffirm commitments in existing international agreements rather than move forward. References to gender in the Plan of Implementation provide for equal opportunity with men, but do not make gender central to sustainable development.

In the Plan of Implementation, paragraphs on globalisation, energy, capacity-building and science and technology fail to mention the central role of women. Consideration of gender is often reserved for issues of education and health. Since references to gender were at stake even in these realms, the women's caucus was forced to concentrate on basic human rights. Women at the WSSD had to focus much of their lobbying on holding the line, especially in the realm of reproductive health and women's human rights.

A major lobby organised by the women's caucus, in collaboration with supportive governments and other NGOs, succeeded in gaining language that referenced human rights, thus salvaging existing agreements made at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, and Beijing+5 in New York. Another area of intensive lobbying that resulted in one of the more significant gains was the right of women to inherit land, particularly critical to the livelihoods of African women and communities. The importance of this commitment lies in the recognition of the rights of women to access land, resources, credit, and a groundbreaking decision on the right to inherit land.

Inclusion of gender was among many prolonged struggles throughout the WSSD. Delegates at the final PrepCom and Summit negotiated on contentious issues like energy, globalisation, finance, trade and energy. There was a considerable increase in civil society participation since Rio de Janeiro, but NGO access to negotiations was limited, forcing the women's caucus and other NGOs to meet outside the convention centre. While governments agreed to limited targets and timetables, NGOs were successful in deleting language on =ensuring WTO consistency" and gaining at least a reference to corporate accountability. The women's caucus and NGOs criticised partnerships as a way for governments, especially the United States, to avoid global agreements. They argued that partnerships are already a reality of sustainable development work, and their inclusion in a global UN meeting requires a monitoring mechanism and selection criteria. While the Summit was billed as an implementation event, it failed to establish the international governance structures and resources necessary to ensure that existing commitments will be translated into action.

Women's Action Agenda for a Healthy and Peaceful Planet 2015 served as the basis for lobbying throughout the WSSD process, setting out strong demands by women on peace and human rights, globalisation, access to and control of resources, environmental security and health and governance. A visionary document produced in consultation with women worldwide was adopted by African women as the final declaration at the Women's Action Tent and presented to WSSD Secretary General Nitin Desai and South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma during the closing ceremony.

Women at the Summit demanded that peace and human rights be central to the overall framework for implementation. The final plan makes no reference to de-militarisation or the transfer of resources from military to social budgets, despite increasing world resources devoted to military and anti-terrorist expenditures alongside growing social needs (meanwhile, the United States--by far the world's...

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