WUNRN
WOMEN MOBILIZING FOR SIGNIFICANT
GENDER-FOCUSED
CHANGES IN DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION
& IMPLEMENTATION
AWID - 27/05/2011
The release of recent figures from the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that, despite an increase over 2009,
donor countries are way off track on delivering on their aid disbursement
commitments. Women’s organizations are mobilizing for profound changes in the
system to better meet development needs and guarantee respect for women’s
rights.
By Ana Inés
Abelenda and Anne Schoenstein
The OECD
figures show that in 2010, official development assistance (ODA) from members
of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) was a mere 0.32% of their
combined gross national income (GNI). This is less than half the 0.7% of their
GNI, which they pledged as ODA 40 years ago. If they had delivered on this
pledge, 282 billion dollars would have been available for poverty eradication
and sustainable development said a statement issued by BetterAid, an open platform of more than a thousand civil
society organizations (CSOs).
One of the
cornerstones of aid effectiveness is aid predictability; meaning development
planners need certainty that what is pledged will actually be made available.
Stronger and more concrete government commitments to close the gap between
pledges and disbursements; and profound reforms towards a just and inclusive development cooperation[1]framework are
at the centre of civil society demands in the lead up to the 4th High Level
Forum in Busan, South Korea (HLF-4) taking place from 29th
November – 1st December 2011. This OECD-led forum will not only
assess progress made against the Paris Declaration (2005), and later the Accra Agenda for Action
(AAA, 2008), but will provide an opportunity to commit to a bolder and more
comprehensive reform of development cooperation.
It is
crucial that the women’s movement, civil society platforms and human rights and
gender equality advocates create a strong presence, collaborate and integrate
gender equality and women’s rights on the road to Busan, the HLF-4 itself and
its outcome.
Why
should women's rights and gender equality advocates get involved or deepen
their engagement?
Even though
the AAA included important advances on paper regarding gender equality and
human rights, much still needs to be done regarding the actual implementation
and monitoring. This also speaks to the importance of gender sensitive and
gender specific indicators in relation to development effectiveness outcomes.
National
development plans often fail to reflect women’s rights and gender equality.
Country priority alignment[2], while desirable, can negatively impact the lives of
women and hinder the achievement of key development commitments when
implemented in political contexts characterized by gender inequality and human
rights violations. And while developing countries’ priorities are key,
development plans should be aligned with international and regional agreements
on human rights and gender equality (including the Beijing
Platform for Action and CEDAW). Donors, in turn should refrain from explicitly or
implicitly, applying policy conditionalities or tying their aid.
Democratic
ownership implies that women’s and men’s voices and concerns are included in,
and are central to, national development plans and processes. CSOs contribute
significantly to the reduction of poverty and social inequalities, including
gender inequalities. In order to preserve the strategic roles that they play,
women’s organizations need to participate in development cooperation debates so
that predictable, long-term and diversified funding is available for women’s
rights work. This also ensures that their experience and knowledge gets
integrated into the debates and decisions that are being made.
Between 1500
and 2000 development stakeholder delegates, including about 300 CSO
representatives, are expected to attend HLF-4 in Busan. This presents
opportunities to develop a legitimate, multi-stakeholder development
cooperation framework and to resolutely address the power imbalances in donor
and ‘recipient’ relationships that continue to undermine, among other things,
democratic ownership and the right to development. It is imperative that the
voices of women’s rights groups and other CSOs are heard and taken on board and
history has shown that this is best achieved collectively through alliances.
How is
‘development effectiveness’ different to ‘aid effectiveness[3]?’
According to
the Paris Declaration aid effectiveness refers to how and to whom aid is
delivered. It also refers to the relationship between donors and
recipients. Development effectiveness is a much wider concept that is still
being debated. From a CSO perspective it includes the impact of the actions of
development actors on peoples’ lives; and examines the root causes and symptoms
of poverty, inequality, marginalization and injustice. CSOs, including women’s
organizations, have been pushing for a change in discourse from aid
effectiveness to a human rights-based perspective on development cooperation and
development effectiveness.
There is an urgent need to move beyond the mechanistic process into a
political discussion on how to allocate and distribute resources that will have
a real impact on the lives of all women and men. CSOs involved in challenging
the Paris and Accra processes[4] are promoting a vision where there is no aid
effectiveness without development effectiveness. This means that gender
equality, human rights, social justice and environmental sustainability must be
recognized as crucial to development effectiveness and as such development
cooperation.
How are
CSOs, particularly women’s organizations, influencing development cooperation
spaces?[5]
There are
several spaces where development cooperation and development policies are
discussed that permit different levels of participation for civil society
organizations (CSOs). The G20, for example is a forum not open for CSO
participation, and its self-selected nature means that it lacks the legitimacy
to make decisions that impact the lives of people around the world. The
OECD-DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness (WP-EFF), - the body responsible
for monitoring the implementation of the Paris Declaration and the AAA and
which will report back to HLF-4 - granted CSOs membership through the BetterAid
platform after the 3rd High Level Forum (HLF-3) on Aid Effectiveness
in Accra in 2008. It is, however, still far from what CSOs have been demanding
and only includes a selection of developing countries.
In contrast
to the OECD-led aid effectiveness process, the United Nations Development
Cooperation Forum (UN DCF) is a biennial forum within the UN Economic and
Social Council (ECOSOC). It works to support and enhance the implementation of
the internationally agreed development goals (IADG), including the Millennium
Development Goals, by promoting dialogue. The DCF’s
multi-stakeholder nature, its strong focus on dialogue and its equal
representation of developed and developing countries make it a rare space.[6] AWID’s primer on
the Road to Korea points out that, “CSOs see the DCF as an opportunity to
establish an equitable multilateral architecture for determining policies and
priorities for donors and developing country governments, although mechanisms
for open and meaningful participation would need to be reviewed, especially vis
à vis the participation of CSOs, including women’s rights organisations”.
The Women's
Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD), an alliance of mainly
women's organizations and networks that advocates for the advancement of gender
equality, women's empowerment and human rights, has been actively engaging with
the DCF process. BetterAid also regards the DCF as an important space and
is engaged in it.
The road to
HLF-3 in 2008 marked the beginning of a round of consultations by women's
organizations across regions and the advancement of alliances between CSOs,
which brought some progress on gender equality. However, advances in language
were undermined by the absence of new targets or time-bound commitments to
measure progress on these actions. Some key areas including decent work, policy
conditionality, tied aid, mutual accountability and the reform of the aid
governance system were left out or were insufficiently addressed[7]. Thus the policy and advocacy work by women’s rights
groups and other CSOs will continue towards and at the Busan HLF-4.
Many CSOs
have joined[8] the BetterAid Platform coordinated by the BetterAid
Coordinating Group (BACG) whose overarching goal is to monitor and influence
international aid effectiveness agreements such as the Paris Declaration and
the AAA (with a specific focus on issues of democratic ownership). It
also aims to broaden the policy agenda from the AAA towards development
effectiveness, and substantial reform of the international aid architecture.
BetterAid in cooperation with Open Forum has developed key messages and proposals from CSOs on the road to Busan.
Women’s
groups[9] within the BACG are also working to strengthen the
gender position and are encouraging wider participation from women’s rights
advocates across regions in the process. In a recent international strategy
meeting[10] in New York around 20 women's organizations, gender
equality and human rights advocates from diverse regions shared information on
the process and outlined what is at stake for women's rights. They strategized
about advancing a gender equality and women’s rights perspective in development
cooperation debates and what they aim to achieve in the HLF-4 in Busan and
after.
Building on
this meeting, women’s groups from the BACG will convene an International consultation on development cooperation, women’s
rights and gender equality: "On the road again: Feminist visions and
strategies towards Busan and beyond", 9 – 10 June 2011 in Brussels,
Belgium and hosted by WIDE Network.
_____________________________
A space
for information sharing about the aid effectiveness agenda and related
processes particularly from a gender equality and women’s rights perspective
has been created through the Google group listserv hosted by AWID: the-road-to-accra-and-beyond@googlegroups.com
If you wish to join please contact aabelenda@awid.org
[1]Development cooperation is sometimes used
inter-changeably with “aid” or “development assistance”, but includes more than
ODA resource transfers. For example, BetterAid uses “development cooperation”
to include a range of international relationships between governments or people
for the purposes of achieving the Internationally-Agreed Development Goals in
developing countries.
[2] The principle of ‘Alignment’ in the Paris Declaration
refers to the commitment by donors to base their overall support on recipient countries’
national development strategies, institutions and procedures.
[3] Further information and debate in ‘Development
cooperation beyond the aid effectiveness paradigm: A women’s rights
perspective’ (AWID, 2011, p.12). Available at:
www.awid.org/Development-Cooperation-Beyond-the-Aid-Effectiveness-Paradigm-A-women-s-rights-perspective
[4] Ibid.3
[5] For more information on the key actors involved on the
road to Busan, Korea, see Primer 9 of the Development Cooperation and Women's
Rights series: "The Road to Korea 2011: Key official and civil society actors"
[6]See the Friday File "Development Cooperation Forum Holds Some Promise For Women’s
Rights Advocates", 04/08/2010
[7] See Primer 8: “The Accra Agenda for Action: A brief review from a women’s
rights perspective” and BetterAid: “An assessment of the Accra Agenda for Action from a civil
society perspective”
[8] Only civil society organizations can be members of
BetterAid and can join via
http://betteraid.org/en/about-us/join-betteraid/registers.html
[9]African
Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law
and Development (APWLD), Association
for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), WIDE Network, Coordinadora de la Mujer/Bolivia.
[10] The meeting was held from February 26-27, 2011, and was
co-organized by AWID, FEMNET and WIDE with the support of UN Women.