PRESS CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY UNITED STATES

10 September 1996

Press Briefing

19960910 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

Citing examples from around the world of new laws, policies and quotas supporting women's rights, Susan Davis, Executive Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), told correspondents yesterday morning that one year after the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women, "Governments are in motion. We are hopeful that they are going to go beyond promises."

However, Jocelyn Dow, Vice-President of WEDO, said that there was a contradiction. While women were making sure they were participating in governance and the economy, macroeconomic conditions -- including structural adjustment programmes that reduced public-sector wages, the elimination of protective tariffs, and the brain drain from developing countries -- were hurting women. "In the end", she said, "you can have the form but lack the resources to make the contents worthwhile."

Along with WEDO President Bella Abzug, Ms. Davis and Ms. Dow were speaking at a press conference, sponsored by the United States Mission, which was held to release "Beyond Promises: Governments in Motion One Year after the Beijing Women's Conference", WEDO's one-year progress report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. The report was a follow-up to WEDO's "First Steps: What Has Happened since Beijing?", which was published in March. In the audience were approximately a dozen WEDO representatives from around the world.

Ms. Abzug said that more than any other women's conference, the Beijing Conference "has generated tremendous enthusiasm and enormous action and reaction on the part of women all over the world". They had been acting with governments and getting governments to act in turn.

The Beijing Platform was an enforceable contract between the countries who agreed to the Platform and the world's women, she said. At the Conference, 90 countries had made specific commitments to specific items that they were going to support. She added: "The time has come to take these documents seriously. They must be implemented."

The report "Beyond Promises" was based on a questionnaire that WEDO had sent to all 189 countries that had attended the Beijing Conference. Ms. Abzug said that "First Steps" had contained reports from about 20 countries. "Beyond Promises" had 53 reports from 51 countries, as well as regional reports for countries of the Caribbean and the Pacific islands. "The fact that we don't have every single country responding to us is just the beginning. When

countries see these publications and they see they are not in it, they immediately call us and say, 'Well, we have a report we intend to make.' ... We are acting as a spur."

She said that it had been agreed in Beijing that by the end of this year, in consultation with non-governmental organizations, every country was to develop a national plan of action based upon the Beijing Platform for Action. All over the world, women were working with their governments on those national plans. "Beyond Promises" showed that progress was being made in Costa Rica, Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria and many other countries.

In the United States, women were a very key political force, she said. The 30 per cent gender gap would make the difference in the upcoming national elections. On 28 September, the Office of the White House would be reporting to United States citizens via a teleconference, saying specifically what it had done regarding the commitments it had made at Beijing and since.

Ms. Abzug said "Beyond Promises" was "more of a report than it is a criticism, although there are people who have criticisms. As we go along, we will criticize what the governments say they are doing, if they are not doing it. We are not only watching the governments, we are watching the United Nations, and we are watching the financial institutions that are running this world, like the World Bank". The report contained a section focusing on what the World Bank had promised to do to deal with the impact of structural adjustment programmes which had fallen so heavily on poor women.

Ms. Davis said, "What you see being reported on is clusters of actions around partnerships, legal remedies and new programmes and initiatives. They may be a lot of hot air, they may be empty promises. A lot of it is in the detail of who is actually being appointed. The fact that feminists are being appointed to sit on these commissions -- to head these commissions -- and that formerly closed governments are now bringing in the activists, signals a new form of engagement. Maybe it is because governments believe they really need us."

She said more women were running for office around the world, more were being elected; effective use was being made of positive discrimination quotas and affirmative action. She cited programmes in India and South Africa to establish quotas to increase women's representation in local and national governments. Although the struggle for economic justice was very difficult, "Beyond Promises" showed that Finland, Norway and the Netherlands were working to reduce wage gaps. There were new bills against family violence in Colombia. The abortion battle was being fought all around the world.

Ms. Dow, who is also Executive Director of the Red Thread Women's Development Project in Guyana, said that the reduction of public-sector wages as a result of structural adjustment programmes was very directly affecting women in the education and health fields whose wages were frozen quite often

United States Press Conference - 3 - 10 September 1996

or increased at very minimal levels. The brain drain was putting an extra burden on women, both those who migrated to keep the family intact and the grandmothers, aunts and sisters who remained and had to look after those who were left. She also expressed concern about what was happening with the environment and indigenous peoples.

A correspondent asked how much of the governments' responses contained in "Beyond Promises" was hot air and if WEDO was going to monitor what governments were actually doing? Ms. Abzug said such monitoring was important and WEDO representatives in the audience were part of the vast monitoring body that was going to follow up and deal with what was not being done. Ms. Davis said, "We know that the gap between the reality and the rhetoric is vast. We think it was significant though that ambassadors from 22 countries felt obliged to return to the questionnaire." The goal was to get all the countries to respond, she added.

A correspondent said the "Beyond Promises" report gave the World Bank a fairly mixed review, and he asked Ms. Dow, who consults to the World Bank, about the credibility of the Bank's efforts regarding becoming more gender sensitive and structural adjustment programmes.

Ms. Dow said there was more transparency, more access to information about what was going on, but that did not always translate into women being involved in the development of actual plans. "We don't want to be consulted after the fact. We want to be part of the process. So, there is a big attempt to have the assessment strategies include contact with women's non- governmental organizations and people working in that area." She added: "In the end, it will come down to what resources you have in the country, what are the issues of sovereignty, ownership and women's participation, and the ways in which you enable women to mainstream into the economy." Women should not only be part of micro-enterprises, but also have access to the credit and all the financial and training resources necessary for women to take their rightful place in the economy, she stressed.

A correspondent said that it looked like, except for Egypt, the Middle East was entirely missing from "Beyond Promises", and that there was also a lack of reporting from Asia, particularly China. Did that imply that nothing was happening in those areas? Ms. Davis said that there were 10 reports from Asia. The All-China Women's Federation had faxed in its report, but after the July deadline for inclusion in "Beyond Promises". In general, Asian governments had not felt compelled to get their reports in and they were late. To report to a non-governmental organization was a new concept, as it was for non-governmental organization's to feel empowered to report on their governments.

Ms. Dow said one of the roles of "Beyond Promises" was to put pressure on governments to report. There had been no such public pressure after the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. There had been

United States Press Conference - 4 - 10 September 1996

less compliance, and there had been no public face on the reporting after the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Ms. Abzug added, "There's a growing stirring among women in the Middle East. Their struggle is a much more difficult one because of repressive laws. But they are organizing much more. I think we can look forward to some action from the countries that have not reported in."

* *** *