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What does the road ahead hold for our collective struggle to ensure implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the advancement of women's rights and gender equality?

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Author	Message
annaturley Moderated by: admin	Monday 15 February 2010 9:01:39 am Share your perspectives here!
DavidKennethWaldman	Sunday 21 February 2010 7:37:18 am The road ahead is positive and filled with opportunity for women. There are still many challenges and obstacles that are cultural, political, religious based which inform the direction of positive social change for women and girls. To borrow from Hillary Clinton's famous statement, Women's rights are girls rights and girls rights are women's rights and the way forward is to link the two. Additionally a stronger outreach campaign to include men and boys starting at the youngest ages to teach gender equality and equalibrium. The way forward will come at the grassroots at the community level where education of international human rights standards will be integrated into specific social justice rights that is culturally appropriate that informs and advances through national social policy to ensure social development for the girl children. With the education of more girls there will be more empowerment and opportunity for the feminization of leadership. This means a women for the next Secretary General, and a international campaign has to be started today toward that end. What better opportunity for such a campaign with the present SG so support and firm in his support of women's rights. The way forward will mean to challenge assumptions of solutions such as GEAR at the UN and to be able to adapt and fine tune policy and instittutions that need amending. It also means to challenge assumptions how to reach gender equality and that gender equality must mean providing capacity as well as capability. It will not be enough to education girls and women if there are limited opportunities due to restrictions of culture and negative gender bias. I am a doctoral student in the School of Public Policy at Walden University specializing in international nongovernmental organizations. I am also the founder and president of To Love Children whose mission is to create sustainable educational development opportunities for the girl child in the developing world in order to break the cycle of poverty. I am now writing my dissertation this year on the effect of human rights on social justice at the United Nations: Gender, Culture, and Social Policy. As part of civil society, government and the United Nations values the input and our relationships but does not respond in kind with the time, resources, and inclusion as equal partners in international policy formation. Equality of civil society with governments who find NGO's as a threat limit the ability for Beiijing Platform 15 years later to reach its potential. Women must support higher standards for the MDG's such as University education as the end goal and not primary education. If we go to the ocean with a small cup we get a small amount of sustanence. Women need to state the case that primary education without quality, curriculum reform, teacher inservice and education, better pay for teachers, educational resource centers, libraries, building of infrastructure, water management so girls do not have to spend hours each day collecting water and fire wood, day care facilities for younger siblings that teach appropriate educational development, and so much more is just an empty goal that has no realistic meaning that translates to breaking the cycle of poverty. Some nations such as Uganda has compulsory secondary education but school fees, uniforms, costs of books, care of siblings, and a number of other concerns such as lack of toliets for girls and boys and sanitary napkins, poverty, conflict, among other issues named for primary educational needs are still barriers. To end this reply on a positive note here is a positive suggest for disscussion. IF the UN is merging the four women's agencies there also needs to be a corresponding merging of women organizations that have a direct link to national government, civil society, local community, and GEAR. How do we move from talk to action. From goals that have been stated and agreed decades ago e.g. CEDAW, CRC to name two to reality? How do we empower small nongovernmental and community based organizations to take a more central stage in policy and voice at conferences and forums such as this. Lack of resources, money, size, and awareness of what is available hinder the voices of to many women and groups. How will individual cultural barriers be breached with human rights? Does adding a social justice component to address national and local cultural barriers be productive? If yes or no, then why? I am honoured to be included in AWID forum and look forward to becoming a major particant to listen and learn, to present ideas to challenge our assumptions, and to stand with you and give voice to those women that are voiceless that presently we cannot all reach out to. NGO formed first in USA/ registered also in Uganda and Kenya David Kenneth Waldman Founder/President To Love Children Educational Foundation International Inc. To Love Children is an NGO in Special Consultative Status to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations "Expanding Children's Horizons Globally through Local Education" "If you want to truly understand something, try to change it" - Kurt Lewin
UN-INSTRAW&CAWTAR	Thursday 18 March 2010 9:55:28 am In the framework of jointly established priorities of the Bejing Platform for Action and with Goal nr 3 of the Millennium Development Goal, our project titled "Strengthening women's leadership and participation in politics and decision-making in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia” - initiated by the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) and the Center of Arab Women for Training and Research (CAWTAR) and financed by the Spanish Government – is acting to enhance women’s political participation and to reach gender balance. The assessment, run in the first phase of our initiative, has been based on an extensive research literature, including legislation, studies, reports, analysis, proceedings of seminars, action-researches, etc…. then validated through national and regional round tables and restitution workshops at local level. It has been reported into the following publications: 3 national mappings, 3 national action researches, 1 media exercise on the media coverage of women politicians in the 3 countries, 1 flyer about quota, 3 country gender fact sheets. All them are available at the link: http://www.womenpoliticalparticipation.org/template.php?code=29 This participatory assessment which reveals the current situation, challenges, good practices and key actors, obstacles and opportunities to women’s participation in politics and decision making process, defined main directions to be undertaken in the future in order to enhance women’s political participation. The workshops and conferences realized to validate assessment results and to promote dialogue and exchange of experiences, allowed to focus on specific expectations and needs of different stakeholders and to better orient project activities. Capacity building and awareness raising are considered main tools to improve gender balance in political decision- making. Additional priorities have been identified: Improving the image of women politicians: A media exercise with a participatory analysis about the coverage of women political participation by media, in the three countrie, was conducted and it is available in French at this address : http://www.womenpoliticalparticip.../upload/publication/publication3.pdf In spite of the evolution of the audiovisual landscape that the region is experiencing, we easily note that stereotypes are still conveyed by the media. The relationship between women participating in political life and the media needs to be fostered, both in terms of media’s treatment and representation of women in politics, as well as women politicians’ access to the media and their capacity to use communication as a tool to promote gender issues and to guarantee women success in the political space. Very often, indeed, these two target groups lack of reciprocal knowledge and comprehension, consequently make mutual collaboration more difficult. Capacity building of women politicians: Women active in political sphere need to strengthen their information and knowledge sources, their networking/lobbying strategies and their communication skills in order to be more incident and strategically strong into political negotiation. Training workshops should allow politician women to master negotiation tools such as arguments, to be acquainted with formal and informal political rules and mechanisms, to properly use communication and ICT techniques (use of sms technology, take advantage of social networks etc.) to be used in their political activities . Strengthening the role of the civil society: We should not overlook the potential role of the NGOs in the reinforcement of women political participation. A good practice is represented by the “Mouvement pour le tiers en vue de la parité” a network of Moroccan NGOs which contributed to the introduction of a “quota system”, adopted in recent local elections in Morocco. For more details please refer to page.63 of the “mapping” . (http://www.womenpoliticalparticip.../upload/publication/publication1.pdf ) Strengthening civil society, encouraging networking, multiplying awareness campaigns constitute the main components of an efficient strategy to promote the access of woman to the political life. Awareness of political parties to gender issues: A work must be done with political parties to integrate the gender approach in the party organization. This strategy aims to allow women to reach decision making positions within their political party.Woman should not anymore be satisfied with her role of “female member”, but she should have the proper conditions to be a decision maker as the man is, in order to contribute to changing menthalities, eliminating stereotypes and reaching gender equality and balance into society . Specific activities should be developed by the political parties to reinforce women political skills. Awareness of youth to the importance of women political participation: Youth people are considered as an important group to be targeted by the Project through the implementation of workshops. These workshops will be an occasion to make the youth people thinking about the importance of the women political participation and to establish a dialogue between them and the politicians women. Youth people should be invited to create messages with several supports (theater, pictures, caricatures, press articles, sms messages…). The objective of such activity is to lead youth people to think about reinforcing women political participation. Building a network with stakeholders : this should be done through establishing a continuous dialogue with different actors at the local, sub- regional, regional and international levels. The main objective of such dialogue is to exchange good practices, coordinate common activities targeting strengthening women participation to the political life.

Author

Message

annaturley

Moderated by: admin

Monday 15 February 2010 9:01:39 am

Share your perspectives here!

DavidKennethWaldman

Sunday 21 February 2010 7:37:18 am

The road ahead is positive and filled with opportunity for women. There are still many challenges and obstacles that are cultural, political, religious based which inform the direction of positive social change for women and girls. To borrow from Hillary Clinton's famous statement, Women's rights are girls rights and girls rights are women's rights and the way forward is to link the two. Additionally a stronger outreach campaign to include men and boys starting at the youngest ages to teach gender equality and equalibrium. The way forward will come at the grassroots at the community level where education of international human rights standards will be integrated into specific social justice rights that is culturally appropriate that informs and advances through national social policy to ensure social development for the girl children. With the education of more girls there will be more empowerment and opportunity for the feminization of leadership. This means a women for the next Secretary General, and a international campaign has to be started today toward that end. What better opportunity for such a campaign with the present SG so support and firm in his support of women's rights.

The way forward will mean to challenge assumptions of solutions such as GEAR at the UN and to be able to adapt and fine tune policy and instittutions that need amending. It also means to challenge assumptions how to reach gender equality and that gender equality must mean providing capacity as well as capability. It will not be enough to education girls and women if there are limited opportunities due to restrictions of culture and negative gender bias.

I am a doctoral student in the School of Public Policy at Walden University specializing in international nongovernmental organizations. I am also the founder and president of To Love Children whose mission is to create sustainable educational development opportunities for the girl child in the developing world in order to break the cycle of poverty. I am now writing my dissertation this year on the effect of human rights on social justice at the United Nations: Gender, Culture, and Social Policy. As part of civil society, government and the United Nations values the input and our relationships but does not respond in kind with the time, resources, and inclusion as equal partners in international policy formation. Equality of civil society with governments who find NGO's as a threat limit the ability for Beiijing Platform 15 years later to reach its potential.

Women must support higher standards for the MDG's such as University education as the end goal and not primary education. If we go to the ocean with a small cup we get a small amount of sustanence. Women need to state the case that primary education without quality, curriculum reform, teacher inservice and education, better pay for teachers, educational resource centers, libraries, building of infrastructure, water management so girls do not have to spend hours each day collecting water and fire wood, day care facilities for younger siblings that teach appropriate educational development, and so much more is just an empty goal that has no realistic meaning that translates to breaking the cycle of poverty. Some nations such as Uganda has compulsory secondary education but school fees, uniforms, costs of books, care of siblings, and a number of other concerns such as lack of toliets for girls and boys and sanitary napkins, poverty, conflict, among other issues named for primary educational needs are still barriers.

To end this reply on a positive note here is a positive suggest for disscussion. IF the UN is merging the four women's agencies there also needs to be a corresponding merging of women organizations that have a direct link to national government, civil society, local community, and GEAR. How do we move from talk to action. From goals that have been stated and agreed decades ago e.g. CEDAW, CRC to name two to reality? How do we empower small nongovernmental and community based organizations to take a more central stage in policy and voice at conferences and forums such as this. Lack of resources, money, size, and awareness of what is available hinder the voices of to many women and groups. How will individual cultural barriers be breached with human rights? Does adding a social justice component to address national and local cultural barriers be productive? If yes or no, then why?

I am honoured to be included in AWID forum and look forward to becoming a major particant to listen and learn, to present ideas to challenge our assumptions, and to stand with you and give voice to those women that are voiceless that presently we cannot all reach out to.

NGO formed first in USA/ registered also in Uganda and Kenya

David Kenneth Waldman
Founder/President
To Love Children Educational Foundation International Inc.

To Love Children is an NGO in Special Consultative Status to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations
"Expanding Children's Horizons Globally through Local Education"

"If you want to truly understand something, try to change it" - Kurt Lewin

UN-INSTRAW&CAWTAR

Thursday 18 March 2010 9:55:28 am

In the framework of jointly established priorities of the Bejing Platform for Action and with Goal nr 3 of the Millennium Development Goal, our project titled "Strengthening women's leadership and participation in politics and decision-making in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia” - initiated by the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) and the Center of Arab Women for Training and Research (CAWTAR) and financed by the Spanish Government – is acting to enhance women’s political participation and to reach gender balance.

The assessment, run in the first phase of our initiative, has been based on an extensive research literature, including legislation, studies, reports, analysis, proceedings of seminars, action-researches, etc…. then validated through national and regional round tables and restitution workshops at local level. It has been reported into the following publications: 3 national mappings, 3 national action researches, 1 media exercise on the media coverage of women politicians in the 3 countries, 1 flyer about quota, 3 country gender fact sheets. All them are available at the link: http://www.womenpoliticalparticipation.org/template.php?code=29
This participatory assessment which reveals the current situation, challenges, good practices and key actors, obstacles and opportunities to women’s participation in politics and decision making process, defined main directions to be undertaken in the future in order to enhance women’s political participation. The workshops and conferences realized to validate assessment results and to promote dialogue and exchange of experiences, allowed to focus on specific expectations and needs of different stakeholders and to better orient project activities. Capacity building and awareness raising are considered main tools to improve gender balance in political decision- making. Additional priorities have been identified:

Improving the image of women politicians:

A media exercise with a participatory analysis about the coverage of women political participation by media, in the three countrie, was conducted and it is available in French at this address : http://www.womenpoliticalparticip.../upload/publication/publication3.pdf
In spite of the evolution of the audiovisual landscape that the region is experiencing, we easily note that stereotypes are still conveyed by the media. The relationship between women participating in political life and the media needs to be fostered, both in terms of media’s treatment and representation of women in politics, as well as women politicians’ access to the media and their capacity to use communication as a tool to promote gender issues and to guarantee women success in the political space.
Very often, indeed, these two target groups lack of reciprocal knowledge and comprehension, consequently make mutual collaboration more difficult.

Capacity building of women politicians:

Women active in political sphere need to strengthen their information and knowledge sources, their networking/lobbying strategies and their communication skills in order to be more incident and strategically strong into political negotiation.
Training workshops should allow politician women to master negotiation tools such as arguments, to be acquainted with formal and informal political rules and mechanisms, to properly use communication and ICT techniques (use of sms technology, take advantage of social networks etc.) to be used in their political activities .

Strengthening the role of the civil society:

We should not overlook the potential role of the NGOs in the reinforcement of women political participation. A good practice is represented by the “Mouvement pour le tiers en vue de la parité” a network of Moroccan NGOs which contributed to the introduction of a “quota system”, adopted in recent local elections in Morocco. For more details please refer to page.63 of the “mapping” . (http://www.womenpoliticalparticip.../upload/publication/publication1.pdf )
Strengthening civil society, encouraging networking, multiplying awareness campaigns constitute the main components of an efficient strategy to promote the access of woman to the political life.

Awareness of political parties to gender issues:

A work must be done with political parties to integrate the gender approach in the party organization. This strategy aims to allow women to reach decision making positions within their political party.Woman should not anymore be satisfied with her role of “female member”, but she should have the proper conditions to be a decision maker as the man is, in order to contribute to changing menthalities, eliminating stereotypes and reaching gender equality and balance into society . Specific activities should be developed by the political parties to reinforce women political skills.

Awareness of youth to the importance of women political participation:

Youth people are considered as an important group to be targeted by the Project through the implementation of workshops. These workshops will be an occasion to make the youth people thinking about the importance of the women political participation and to establish a dialogue between them and the politicians women. Youth people should be invited to create messages with several supports (theater, pictures, caricatures, press articles, sms messages…). The objective of such activity is to lead youth people to think about reinforcing women political participation.

Building a network with stakeholders :

this should be done through establishing a continuous dialogue with different actors at the local, sub- regional, regional and international levels. The main objective of such dialogue is to exchange good practices, coordinate common activities targeting strengthening women participation to the political life.

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