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The United Nations General Assembly Third Committee deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues.

http://www.un.org/ga/maincommittees.shtml

The GA Committees discuss the items, seeking where possible to harmonize the various approaches of States, and present their recommendations, usually in the form of draft resolutions and decisions, to a plenary meeting of the General Assembly for its consideration.

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http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/gashc3918.doc.htm

13 October 2008

General Assembly GA/SHC/3918

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

Sixty-third General Assembly

Third Committee

 ‘NEW PARADIGM IN OUR POLICIES’ NEEDED TO ENSURE WOMEN INVOLVED AT EACH STAGE OF PEACE, DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES, THIRD COMMITTEE TOLD

Special Adviser Says ‘MDG 3’ – Gender Equality - Key to Achieving

All Other Development Goals, As Debate Begins on Advancement of Women

As the multiple global crises facing the world –- financial, food and energy -– cast a “psychological shadow” on the day’s debate and threatened achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, an immense untapped resource -- women, more than half the world’s population –- had been excluded from the strategies of international development and security, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) was told today.

The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, Rachel Mayanja, told the Committee that engaging women in those strategies would require a fundamental shift in thinking.  “We must create a new paradigm in our policies,” she said.  “A model of inclusive development and security” that ensured that women were integrally involved in every stage of development and peace processes.

Speaking as the Committee began its debate on the advancement of women and the implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, she said the third Millennium Development Goal –- to promote gender equality and empower women –- had been much lower on the radar screen than many other Millennium goals.  Yet, it was “key to achieving all the others”.  She added that the Development Goals would not be met unless greater attention and resources were devoted to women’s empowerment and gender equality and, therefore, called for greater focus on that development objective.  She also called for faster, more flexible and more effective coordination and response mechanisms to deal with the confluence of crises at hand.

Many delegates said the creation of a new gender entity within the United Nations system would be central to those efforts.  A “composite entity” that would bring together existing gender-focused entities -- such as the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues, the Division for the Advancement of Women, and the International Research and Training Institute for Women -- was initially called for by Member States in informal consultations leading up to last month’s adoption of the General Assembly resolution on system-wide coherence (A/RES/62/277).  The representative of France, speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States, said the creation of that entity would improve the ability of the United Nations to effectively deliver on gender issues, and would combine the normative and analytical functions of the current gender architecture with a technical, policy-setting and programmatic role.

The representative of Mexico, speaking on behalf of the Rio Group, echoed those remarks, adding that a new gender entity would also promote substantive discussions on issues including funding, governance structure, staffing, and the relationship between the Commission on the Status of Women and other relevant bodies.  However, the representative of Canada, speaking also on behalf of Australia and New Zealand, warned that any new United Nations gender equality architecture would need to, first and foremost, enhance performance at the country level to better support national ownership and leadership.

Leaders within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said they had recently created a historic regional framework for action on gender issues.  In August 2008, regional Heads of State signed a gender protocol that consolidated various commitments on gender equality and gender equity made at regional, continental and international levels, into one document.  The representative of Tanzania, speaking on behalf of the Development Community, said the protocol was a legally binding instrument that set specific targets and time frames for achieving gender equality and gender equity in all areas, as well as effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for measuring success.  However, full implementation would require both national efforts and technical and financial support from the international community.

The Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Inés Alberdi, called on the international community to make good on their previously agreed-upon commitments, but also suggested that national and regional networks of gender equality advocates had a pivotal role to play in securing more gender-equitable policies, programmes and greater resource allocations.  As such, UNIFEM had initiated a cross-regional programme to promote gender equality in financing for development and aid effectiveness debates, with a focus on building the capacity of gender equality advocates to navigate within the new frameworks.  As well, together with the European Commission and the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNIFEM had launched the European Community-United Nations Partnership on Gender Equality for Development and Peace to assess the gender equality impact of the aid effectiveness agenda in 12 countries.  Such partnerships and coordination -- among countries, regions and United Nations organizations -- was a critical element to success on gender equality and women’s empowerment and to the achievement of the broader development goals.

The Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women, Carolyn Hannan, also spoke today to introduce a number of the reports before the Committee, as did the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Dubravka Simonovic.

Also speaking today were the representatives of Antigua and Barbuda (on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China), Guyana, Qatar, Cuba, Iraq, Japan, Sudan, Bangladesh, the Netherlands, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Belarus, the United States of America, Turkey, Algeria, Jamaica, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Libya, China, Slovenia, Chile, Pakistan, Senegal and the Russian Federation.

Background

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) met today to begin its general discussion on the advancement of women and the implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women and of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly.

Before the Committee was the Secretary-General’s report on supporting efforts to end obstetric fistula (document A/63/222).  The report outlines efforts to end obstetric fistula, a preventable childbirth injury that disproportionately affects impoverished women and girls in rural communities of developing countries.  The report draws attention to the significant global momentum that currently exists to address overall maternal health within the context of the Millennium Development Goals and the growth of the Global Campaign to End Fistula since 2003.  However, despite those positive developments, the report states that serious challenges remain that require specific actions, such as greater investments in health-care systems and in support of national health plans.

The Committee also had before it the report of the Secretary-General on trafficking in women and girls (document A/63/215), which notes a substantial increase in the number of States parties to international instruments relevant to combating trafficking in women and girls.  It also highlights the significant strides made by States to strengthen legal frameworks and to bring national legislation in line with international and regional standards.  The report draws attention to the lack of reliable data on the scope and nature of trafficking in women and girls and the need for more and better-quality data to guide the development and evaluation of national policies and programmes.

The report of the Secretary-General on the intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women (document A/63/214) was also before the Committee.  The report highlights the growing number of States with new or strengthened legislation on violence against women and the increasing availability of funding for services for victims.  However, the report also underlines the need for a comprehensive approach, in order to achieve further progress in preventing and effectively responding to all forms of violence against women.  It recommends that States intensify their efforts to raise public awareness, further strengthen legislation, and to evaluate and assess the impact of all initiatives on violence against women.

The Committee also had before it the report of the Secretary-General on eliminating rape and other forms of sexual violence in all their manifestations, including in conflict and related situations (document A/63/216).  The report indicates that still only a small percentage of rapes are reported to authorities and an even smaller percentage results in convictions.  It draws attention to recent progress achieved by numerous countries in reforming their respective criminal laws and procedures, thereby improving the effectiveness of their criminal justice systems in responding to sexual offences.  The report recommends that States, in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, ensure that they enact and effectively implement legal and policy frameworks protecting women and girls from sexual violence, with the scope and coverage of that legislation commensurate with the severity of the offences.

A note by the Secretary-General, transmitting the report of the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the activities of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) (document A/63/205), was also before the Committee.  The report tracks the overall progress of the Fund and highlights concrete results, such as the strengthening of legal and policy frameworks on gender issues in 90 countries, removing gender-discriminatory provisions in nine countries and successful resource mobilization overall.  The report also acknowledges the lack of information regarding the degree to which legislative changes have been implemented and the difficulty in measuring the influence of women’s organizations on mainstream policy processes.  Those challenges will be key areas of focus in the next phase of UNIFEM’s strategic plan, according to the report.

The Committee also had before it the report of the Secretary-General on measures taken and progress achieved in the follow-up to the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly (document A/63/217).  The report examines the extent to which intergovernmental bodies had paid attention to gender perspectives in their work and assesses the impact of the input of the Commission on the Status of Women on discussions within the United Nations system.  It concludes that full and effective implementation requires systematic integration of gender perspectives at all levels and notes that, during its sixty-second session, the General Assembly advanced global policy on gender equality in a number of areas, but did not systematically include gender perspectives in all its documentation or outcomes.  The report recommends that the Commission’s outcomes be systematically transmitted through the Economic and Social Council to the General Assembly and other relevant intergovernmental bodies and suggests that regular reporting on gender equality outcomes could advance the global policy agenda on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The Committee was also expected to consider the report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on its fortieth and forty-first sessions (document A/63/38) and the Secretary-General’s report on the improvement of the status of women in the United Nations system (document A/63/364).

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