WUNRN
The
Women’s Major Group on Development's role: is to assure effective public
participation of women’s non-governmental groups in the UN policy processes on
Sustainable Development, Post-2015 & Environmental Matters. http://www.dawnnet.org/feminist-resources/advocacy/post-2015
DAWN - Development Alternatives with
Women for a New Era
Post-2015
Development Agenda - Regional Realities & Priorities - Women's Human Rights
& Gender Equality
Statement delivered by Gigi Francisco, representing DAWN and the Women’s Major Group at the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) Ministerial Dialogue “Weaving regional realities and regional priorities into the post-2015 development agenda”, 7 July 2014.
Thank you for inviting me to this HLPF Ministerial Dialogue on regional realities and priorities in the post-2015 development agenda. I am Gigi Francisco, representing the network, DAWN, and the Women’s Major Group.
Systemic Issues
As we have heard last week and reiterated by many of you today, the twin concerns on poverty and growing inequalities between countries and among social groups - made worse by urgent as well as slow-onset climate change and disaster related issues - are permanent characteristics of a market-driven economic growth that privileges big business.
Regional commissions reported that countries in their areas are making efforts toward greater equality and poverty eradication but these also claim that such capacity depend, by and large, on a strong and coherent international development agenda wherein global macroeconomic policy coordination and policy coherence in support of sustainable development is enhanced.
Toward moving forward on a paradigm shift, the SDGs must squarely address global systemic issues, among which are eliminating distortions in international trade and imbalances in trade agreements such as found in the TPPA and TAFTA; improving regulation and monitoring of global financial markets and institutions and ensuring that all countries participate equally in decision-making; strengthening implementation of those regulations that enable countries to impose temporary capital restrictions; ensuring countries can negotiate agreements on temporary debt standstills between debtors and creditors; and for poor and vulnerable countries which are saddled with unsustainable debt, guaranteeing expanded eligibility for debt relief and concessional financing.
Moreover, SDGs must adopt country-by-country reporting standards for all transnational corporations, expand and strengthen UNCTAD’s principles for lending and borrowing to cover private investment and agree on binding corporate accountability rules as decided by the HRC on June 26 2014, including sharing of risks and returns in public-private partnerships, and finally on tax evasion and avoidance, convert the UN Committee of Experts on International Tax Cooperation into an intergovernmental body.
Further, implement and operationalize the Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage that SIDS countries had strongly advocated for.
By addressing global systemic issues, based on the principles maximum available resources for the promotion of human rights including the right to development and of common but differentiated responsibilities, and considering the particular vulnerabilities and challenges of small-island developing States (SIDS), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), middle income countries (MICs), least developed countries (LDCs) and other countries in special situations, resources will be freed up, flexibility within policy spaces will be utilized for development, and overall equality between developed and developing countries and generations will be better and responsibly achieved.
Women’s Human Rights and Gender Equality
Women’s inclusion whether through language on ‘non-discrimination’ (ESCAP), ‘equality’ (ECLAC), or ‘mainstreamed’ (ESCWA), is prominently exhorted across all regional reports. Gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment, have been described in the reports as “pre-requisites for sustainable development” (ESCAP); “essential for achieving sustainable development”(ECE); “must have concrete goals and targets to achieve real gender equality and women participation at all levels of policy-making”(ESCWA); and “economic empowerment of young people and women through equal opportunity to ownership and control of economic resources, technology, markets, land, property and inheritance rights”(ECA).
Women’s rights groups have been advocating for all governments to recognize women’s and girls’ economic, political, social, cultural and bodily rights and specifically to address inter-linked issues of care work as not only shared, but also a collective social responsibility. We have also been lobbying governments to respond more systematically to the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls through publicly provided services and laws; to take stronger action against discrimination of persons with diverse sexual orientation and gender identity especially in the workplace and public spaces; to give full rights to all women workers especially to women domestic and overseas workers; or to guarantee rural women’s individual and collective rights to land, abode and assets. In this regard we welcome the International Declaration of the Rights of Peasants passed by the HRC on june 27, 2014.
I refer to parts of paras 93 and 96 of the G77 and China Declaration in Bolivia (June 14-15, 2014) I know that many of you come from the capitals and missions of this important group of countries and as a representative of the Women Major Group, I call on you to further build on this commitments on women’s rights and gender equality.
93. We recall the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, reaffirm the vital role of women and the need for full and equal opportunities for their participation and leadership in all areas of sustainable development, and decide to accelerate the implementation of our respective commitments in this regard as contained in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as in Agenda 21, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development.
96. We recall our respective commitments under General Assembly resolution 61/143 and other relevant resolutions on this matter, recognize that violence against women seriously violates all human rights of women, and therefore agree to take action to eliminate all forms of violence, including feminicide and discrimination against women and girls, by means of a more systematic, comprehensive, multisectoral and sustained approach, adequately supported and facilitated by strong institutional mechanisms and financing, through national action plans, including those supported by international cooperation and, where appropriate, national development plans, including poverty eradication strategies and programme-based and sector-wide approaches.
Finally to say, that we continue to look toward a strong and transparent HLPF that has its own Bureau and Secretariat, robust partnerships with Major groups, CSOs and other stakeholders, and that will be linked back to the Regional Commissions from where solid data, regional realities and consultations with CSOs inform its work.