REALIZATION OF BEIJING PLATFORM UNDERPINS SUCCESS OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS, BUT PUSH TO ATTAIN GOALS MUST NOT NARROW AIMS OF WOMEN’S AGENDA, COMMISSION TOLD
Implementing the Beijing Platform for Action was essential for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, but the well-known conceptual shift in approaching poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon had not been matched by a similarly comprehensive approach to women’s empowerment, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today, as it held two high-level panels that both zeroed in on filling strategy and implementation gaps.
“We are so distracted by the push for the achievement of the Goals that we are going to narrow down the objectives and the agenda that we adopted 15 years ago,” said panelist Zo Randriamaro, Training Coordinator with Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN), one of three morning panelists to discuss the linkages between implementing the Beijing Platform and achieving the Goals. In a spirited exchange with Government and civil society delegates, she stressed that although the Goals could strengthen implementation of the Platform, they included only some of the Platform’s objectives, which was a concern.
In opening remarks, she said women’s empowerment urgently required a coherent and multi-sectoral approach. Moreover, women’s empowerment and gender equality required a development framework that recognized that the objectives of the Platform and the Goals could not be reached when essential social services were being eroded by privatization. A rights-based approach to the Goals and gender equality was a moral obligation and development imperative.
Striking a similar tone, panelist Eva Rathgeber, who held the Joint Chair of Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa/Carleton University in Canada, said implementation of the Beijing Platform had been slow, in part, because national plans had had limited success in changing policy in a way that would speed gender equality. Often, Governments had taken poor or no action on that front, and civil society had not adequately pushed for compliance with commitments.
She said indicators were poor or non-existent and, since they were commonly national aggregates, often masked inequities. And there had been few international forums for dialogue on the issues. There were many ways to change those trends, especially by ensuring that Governments complied with human rights obligations in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Shedding light on one success, Gülden Türkoz-Cosslett, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative and Resident Coordinator in Albania, said women there had improved their participation in decision-making. The number of female Parliament members elected in last June’s national elections had more than doubled from that of the previous election, from 7 per cent in 2005 to 16.4 per cent in 2009.
The afternoon panel, which focused on “Regional Perspectives in progress and remaining gaps and challenges in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action”, heard findings from the reports of the five United Nations regional commissions, which had been undertaken in preparation for the 15-year review at the fifty-fourth session. Four of the five commissions also had organized intergovernmental regional meetings.
In their presentations, speakers generally emphasized the significant gains made in recent years. In
