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Pre-Donor Conference News Release 5 May 2008 |
Nanette Braun, Communications Specialist |
SUDANESE WOMEN EXPRESS GRAVE
CONCERNS ABOUT WOMEN’S SITUATION AND LACK OF FUNDING
New York – Oslo: Ahead of the second Sudanese Donors’ Consortium, to be held tomorrow and on Wednesday in Oslo, Norway, Sudanese women today expressed grave concerns about the situation of women in Sudan and sent an urgent appeal to donors for resources to specifically address women’s needs. In a meeting facilitated prior to the Donors’ Conference by UNIFEM, the Initiative for Inclusive Security and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a group of 20 Sudanese women from all over Sudan assessed progress made since the first Sudanese Donor’s Consortium as too slow. In a joint declaration, issued today, the women point out the following: “We are particularly concerned about the persistence of extremely poor
human development indicators in relation to women and girls’ literacy,
maternal mortality, productive asset security, economic and political
empowerment and protection from gender based violence. There are several gaps
in aid performance from a gender equality perspective: To address these issues, the women demand focused support for women’s leadership, including through endorsement and realization of a 25 per cent quota for women in public office; fast-track efforts to address the most sever aspects of discrimination against women, notably in education and maternal mortality, as well as gender-based violence; enhanced cooperation between government and women’s civil society organizations; and increased government and donor accountability to women through the creation of a body that is to monitor allocations and their impact on women. “The time to invest in women is now”, say the women in their declaration. “Let us not lose this opportunity.” UNIFEM is the women's fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies to foster women's empowerment and gender equality. Placing the advancement of women's human rights at the centre of all of its efforts, UNIFEM focuses its activities on reducing feminized poverty; ending violence against women; reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls; and achieving gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace as well as war. For more information, visit www.unifem.org. UNIFEM, 304 East 45th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10017. Tel: +1 212 906-6400. Fax: +1 212 906-6705. |
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