WUNRN
INTRAC – International NGO Training & Research Centre
Politics, UN
CSW, & Civil Society-Driven Empowerment of Women
By Arantxa Mandiola Lopez and Michael Hammer*
– 11 March 2015
In 1995, the fourth women’s world conference
in Beijing sought to set out a progressive and outspoken agenda, identifying twelve critical
areas to empower women. Yet reality does not tell a
story of progress. Women’s rights face continuing and
rising threats. Some factors are tangibly affecting the security
of individuals and communities such as increasing [religious] fundamentalisms, violent
extremism, and displacement. Others are more structural, such as inequalities
within and between countries, and impacts on livelihoods from climate change.
This is not helped by this year’s UN
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which does not only fail to pick up
the core interests of its constituents, but also largely ignores
women’s civil society input by choosing to discuss and agree on the content of
its draft Declaration in closed discussions prior to the event,
despite the record breaking attendance of civil society organisations (CSOs).
In response, over a thousand organisations
have joined a statement
claiming this Political Declaration “represents a bland reaffirmation of
existing commitments that fails to match the level of ambition (…) and in fact
threatens a major step backward”. There is even
fear that references to the gender equality target proposed in the Sustainable
Development Goals will be removed from the Declaration.
Our own experience shows how fundamentally
wrong this would be. Over the past years, INTRAC has been involved in a range
of initiatives around the world to strengthen women participation in public
life, and their access to human rights. Different case studies and
projects show that the empowerment of women is not only contingent upon
legislation, traditional forms of participation or access to management
positions. Empowerment also means developing a conscious awareness of gender
issues and including new forms and strategies to engage in the process and
influence decision making.
This broader view of empowerment and
participation led the British Council and INTRAC’s strategy when working on the
on-going Women
Participating in Public Life programme (WPIPL) in the MENA
region. Using action research
and focused on political participation by citizens organising themselves, the
WPIPL programme builds the capacity and confidence of women and women’s
organisations to promote different routes to participation, based on the
premise that it goes beyond them occupying formal positions as political
leaders or engaging in formal political processes. As a female activist
involved in the programme explains: “There are alternative means leading and
contributing to public action which can influence policies and service delivery
and allow for women to be engaged in issues that affect their lives”.
This approach is echoed by Zohra Moosa,
Programme Director at International Women’s support organisation Mama Cash: “relationships of power
change as the result of groups of disempowered people coming together to
understand and reflect on their conditions (consciousness-raising), and then
organizing themselves and others to demand change that better serves their
interests based on their particular contexts (mobilization, collective
action)”.
Sustainable social change and development
need women, but it also needs them coming together as civil society actors,
organising themselves around issues that affects their lives. This needs to be
recognised and actively integrated in the ways of working of multilateral
bodies. Otherwise these will lose their relevance for the people they serve.
The display we currently see of the UN CSW lending itself as a platform
for narrow interests driven politics affecting the rights and prospects of life
of individuals is not good enough.
* Arantxa Mandiola
Lopez is INTRAC's Communications and Marketing Officer
- Michael Hammer is
INTRAC's Executive Director.