Convened by the Millennium Campaign, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation
2-4 December 2004, New York, New York
The Millennium Campaign, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and the Heinrich Böll Foundation organized a three-day consultation with women’s organizations to brainstorm on key opportunities and challenges in 2005 ˜ focusing on the ten-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action and the five-year review of progress in implementing the Millennium Declaration. Representatives from approximately 30 women‚s organizations and networks from Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and North America came together on 2-4 December in New York in what was intended to be the first in a series of dialogues to guide and inform planning in the lead up to other key 2005 processes. (Refer to the Final List of Participants.)
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how advocates for women‚s human rights and gender equality can work together at the national, regional, and global levels to: (a) use the interest and investment in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to secure and deepen action and accountability on women‚s human rights; (b) devise shared advocacy approaches and messages to highlight why and how this is important, particularly by linking the ten-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing +10) and the five-year review of the outcomes of the Millennium Summit (MS+5) processes more strategically; and (c) consider how these strategies can be broadened and sustained. (Refer to the December meeting Agenda.)
Although the meeting focused primarily on the Beijing and Millennium review processes, participants discussed key moments and processes in 2005 as a whole, including the WTO Ministerial, G8 Summit, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (G-CAP), the World Social Forum, and the Millennium Project among others. Presentations from the Millennium Campaign, the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Non-Governmental Liaison Service, the Millennium Project, and the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women contributed concrete information to the dialogue. Engaging and interactive discussions were held on the Beijing+10 and Millennium+5 processes, the Commission on the Status of Women, the MDG indicators and statistics, national and local realities, and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.
On the Millennium Goals, participants spoke to the inadequacies of the targets and indicators relating to gender, lack of participation by women in national and global MDGs processes, and exclusion of reproductive rights and employment issues. Others were concerned about an „overload‰ of agendas and frameworks from different international institutions, a lack of coherence in the 2005 processes, the preoccupation with the security agenda, the backlash against women‚s rights, and lapses in dissemination of information to women’s activists.
Overall, there was a strong sense that revitalizing the women‚s movement was a top priority in 2005. Recognizing the limitations of the 2005 agendas and processes, the participants focused on how the women's movement could use the opportunities of 2005 to advance their agenda and demand accountability from governments and international financial institutions, giving greater visibility and voice to their issues. One strong sentiment that emerged was the need for the women‚s movement to come forward with a coherent, cohesive, and unified position in 2005.
Participants shared a wide range of regional and national-level experiences on implementing the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), the Cairo Programme of Action, the MDGs and CEDAW, as well as other strategies and entry points for achieving gender equality and economic and social justice. Three working groups on (i) the national and local levels; (ii) Beijing+10 and the Commission on Status of Women 2005; (iii) the Global Call to Action Against Poverty then met for further discussion.
Important points raised by the working groups include: building alliances with other social movements and non-traditional allies is essential; work on Beijing and the MDGs should not ignore the macroeconomic context and Goal 8 agenda of trade, aid, debt; the movement needs to involve youth; the Beijing+10 outcome should have a strong message on the necessity of implementing CEDAW and the BPfA to achieve the MDGs; the Millennium Campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty should come to feminist spaces, such as the AWID Forum and the CSW; women‚s organizations should continue using existing frameworks and exploit new ones to the extent that they are useful in mobilizing resources and gaining traction for gender equality; and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty needs to be engendered and could have a positive impact for economic justice and women‚s rights. The Beijing+10 group proposed the following overarching message and that it be brought to the CSW: „The attainment of the MDGs depends on women‚s empowerment and gender equality as spelled out in the Beijing Platform for Action and CEDAW.‰ The proposal from WEDO and others to link the Beijing Week of Action in March 2005 to the MDGs and the G-CAP received strong support. The national and local realities group called for UNIFEM to further its role as disseminator of information. Many groups agreed to explore further collaboration with the Millennium Campaign.
As important next steps, many participants indicated that they would take back the information and strategies from the meeting to their organizations, including whether to participate in the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, an international, civil society-led coalition identified as a key entry point. Plans are underway for a series of mass mobilizations in the lead up to the G8 and UN Millennium Summits in 2005 to bring the world‚s attention to trade justice, debt cancellation, development assistance, and national accountability. A task force was formed to engage with how the G-CAP could better integrate a gender analysis and bring women‚s networks and organizations into the process and develop a longer-term strategy for building alliances with social movements and non-traditional allies, including trade movements, debt relief organizations and church groups. A representative of the task force will participate at the G-CAP Coordinating Committee in The Hague on 17-19 January 2005. Task Force members are African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), Association for Women‚s Rights in Development (AWID), International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), International Women‚s Health Coalition (IWHC), Red de Educación Popular Entre Mujeres (REPEM), Women‚s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), and Women’s International Coalition for Economic Justice (WICEJ).
