INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENT TO DEVELOPMENT OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY UNENTHUSIASTIC AVAILABILITY OF RESOURCES, G77 TELLS ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

9 July 1998

Press Release
ECOSOC/5768

INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENT TO DEVELOPMENT OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY UNENTHUSIASTIC AVAILABILITY OF RESOURCES, G77 TELLS ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

19980709 Continuing 1998 Substantive Session, Council Considers Role of Operational Activities in Implementing Action Plan for Women

The Economic and Social Council must ensure that the outcomes of United Nations conferences and summits were reflected in the United Nations operational activities for development, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Nitin Desai, told the Council this morning as it began its segment on operational activities for international development cooperation.

Mr. Desai also urged the Council to act as a bridge between the policy development process and the work of the United Nations in operational activities for development. Participants in the United Nations conferences of the past decade had outlined a substantive programme in a number of areas, with gender in development being a priority issue included in all conference action plans.

Speaking during the Council's discussion focusing on the role of operational activities in implementing commitments made during the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, the representative of Indonesia said the Council should commit to supporting developing countries in their efforts to realize United Nations conference goals. Speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, she said the international community's firm commitment to advance economic and social development was often accompanied by an unenthusiastic availability of resources for genuine action. More resources must be mobilized if the United Nations system was to support the Beijing Platform for Action.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States, the representative of Austria said an investment in women was an investment in human development. Yet, the flow of resources to women was not commensurate with their responsibilities. Development agencies should establish financial systems that could track resources allocated with a gender perspective. They should also develop gender-oriented budgets that indicated whether the project, policy or programme had fully integrated gender equality.

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Far more precision was needed in the allocation of resources for gender issues, said the Assistant-Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, Angela King. Introducing the Secretary- General's report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, she said gender mainstreaming was not yet compulsory throughout the United Nations system. That effort must have the full backing, expertise and collaboration of planning and budgeting heads within the Organization's agencies.

Statements were made by the representatives of the United States, Denmark, Costa Rica, Algeria, Tunisia, Brazil, Sweden, Bangladesh, Mexico, Philippines, Japan and Croatia. The observer of Switzerland also spoke. A representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) also addressed the Council.

In addition, the Council agreed to hear statements from eight non- governmental organizations, listed in document E/1998/82 and Add.1, that were in consultative status with the Council and had requested hearings through the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations.

The Council will meet again at 3 p.m. this afternoon to continue its high-level meeting of the operational activities of the United Nations for international development cooperation.

Council Work Programme

The Economic and Social Council met this morning to begin its segment on operational activities for international development cooperation.

During this segment, which opens today with a high-level debate, the Council will address the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference for Women and enhancing the participation of women in development. As a basis for its discussions, the Council will have before it a report of the Secretary-General on the advancement of women and the implementation of the Platform for Action (document E/1998/54 and Corr.1). While too soon to assess the effectiveness of the post-Beijing initiatives, the Secretary-General says it was possible to suggest future directions in anticipation of the high-level review of the implementation of the action plan in the year 2000.

The Secretary-General reviews actions being taken throughout the United Nations system to enhance its capacity for gender mainstreaming. He recommends that the Council might wish again to call on the United Nations system to fully incorporate gender into the integrated follow-up to recent global conferences, and to continue to strengthen its capacity to support and implement world conference commitments related to women's human rights, women's empowerment and the elimination of violence against women.

According to the report, there was general agreement that the catalytic role of gender and women in development focal points is essential to gender mainstreaming. Yet questions remained about how best to institutionalize this role, so that attention to gender becomes irreversible.

Several initiatives were under way to expand the extent of gender expertise available to those carrying out activities in the field. The Secretary-General recommends that the Council might wish to reiterate the need for a study of the role of gender units and focal points, including a focus on the extent to which focal points have support from and access to the highest levels of decision-making.

As in the case of development assistance, a national policy environment for the advancement of women is of crucial importance in order for United Nations system support to be possible, the report states. The feedback obtained from questionnaires sent to governments and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident coordinators in connection with the triennial comprehensive policy review indicated that the level of government readiness for assistance in gender programming varies considerably. Governments were at varying stages of development regarding gender programming, ranging from those governments that have expressed no interest in having women-specific projects; those that support sporadic women-related

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projects; to those that have developed and some which are implementing a national action plan utilizing women-specific or mainstreaming approaches.

The Secretary-General continues by recommending that the Council may wish to endorse the proposal to convene field-level inter-agency thematic groups specifically on gender, while urging all inter-agency thematic or working groups should incorporate gender analysis into their work. It might also wish to reiterate the importance of resident coordinators promoting and supporting ratification of, compliance with and reporting on, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Regarding accountability and evaluation, the Secretary-General reports that a new management culture was being promoted at the United Nations system that placed greater responsibility and accountability on staff, at various levels. While that effort presented many opportunities to strengthen attention to gender issues, greater accountability was needed at all levels to ensure effective gender mainstreaming.

Since monitoring mechanisms were important for accountability and evaluation, the Secretary-General states that the Council might wish to recommend setting the year 2000 as a target date for one third of resident coordinators establishing gender theme groups, while reporting on the use of resources for gender mainstreaming activities. By the year 2002, at least two thirds of resident coordinators should be able to do so. The Council also might consider recommending training should be provided to resident coordinators to enhance their capacity to operationalize their responsibilities in the context of the Beijing commitments.

The report also states that the Council might wish to recommend that United Nations entities verify that funds allocated for gender mainstreaming were being used to support activities carried out by local women's organizations. It also might wish to encourage financial support for national and non-governmental organizations developing gender-sensitive budgets.

The Secretary-General's report on the mid-term review of the implementation of the system-wide medium-term plan for the advancement of women, 1996-2001 (E/CN.6/1998/3) outlines many of the recent directives and initiatives of United Nations entities targeted at increasing the efforts of staff to use gender analysis in designing, implementing and assessing plans and projects.

According to the report, considerable overall progress had been achieved in implementing the wide array of activities envisaged under the plan and a policy commitment to the proposals spelled out at the Fourth World Conference on Women. Yet, a number of obstacles have been encountered. Those included: the lack of data and of methodologies and indicators for monitoring progress; a lack of tools for tracking expenditures for cross-sectoral activities, at

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both headquarters and field levels; inadequate human and financial resources; low levels of commitment, both politically in some countries and at the level of management in some agencies of the United Nations system; cultural and other constraints; and delays in delivery of technical assistance. The report sets out a number of recommendations for improving coordination by the United Nations system in implementing the system-wide medium-term plan for the advance of women. The recommendations build on Council agreed conclusions 1997/2, which proposed steps for mainstreaming gender analysis and for advancing the status of women throughout the United Nations system.

The Secretary-General calls on the United Nations bodies to develop strategies for gender mainstreaming that clearly describe goals, tasks and accountability at all levels. Staffing policies throughout the United Nations system, whether recruiting or promoting women or men, should fully reflect the need for gender competence and gender equality. Inter-agency coordination mechanisms and bodies within the United Nations should promote an increasingly coordinated overall approach to gender mainstreaming.

The Organization should also provide assistance to countries in building gender competencies cross-sectorally, and in establishing systems of accountability for gender mainstreaming, the Secretary-General notes. In addition, it should develop principles and guidelines for strengthening cooperation with non-governmental organizations active on gender issues, both in advocacy and project implementation.

The Council also had before it a note by the Secretary-General on the implementation of the revised system-wide medium-term plan for the advancement of women, 1996-2001 (document E/1998/10). In it, the Secretary-General states that he would submit to the Council a new system-wide medium-term plan for the advancement of women, to cover the period 2002-2005, at the Council's substantive session in the year 2000. The draft plan would provide guidance for the medium-term plans of the individual organizations of the United Nations system. It was to be submitted to the Commission on the Status of Women at its forty-fourth session for comments.

Statement by Under-Secretary-General

NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said only the Council could provide a direction for the Organization's work in operational activities for development. In the past, the focus of the Council during the operational activities segment had been on process issues, with an emphasis on field-level activities. This year the Council had the unique opportunity to start playing an important role in substantive issues. The Council had the responsibility to provide substantive values regarding programme priorities.

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As part of that responsibility, the Council should examine the link between the United Nations conference process and operational activities for development, he said. The conference process had outlined a substantive programme in a number of areas. The issue of gender in development had been a major priority at all global conference processes of the past decade. The Council must ensure that conference outcomes would be reflected in the operational activities of the United Nations for development.

The Council also had the opportunity to affect the evaluation of work of the United Nations system at the country level, he said. The documents before the Council spoke of success in capacity-building in the fields of health and education. The Council should look closely at the impact evaluation exercises, which were performed by independent experts and were truly honest evaluations. They could become valuable exercises and help to clarify what was meant by the phrase "capacity-building."

He also invited the Council to consider how it could provide more precise and definite policy guidance to United Nations funds and programmes. It was important that the Council acted as a bridge between the policy development process and the work of United Nations in operational activities for development. The issue of gender in development provided a sound basis for that bridging process.

Statement by Advisor on Gender Issues

ANGELA KING, Assistant Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, introduced the report of the Secretary- General on operational activities enhancement of women's participation in development. Initiatives including the Beijing Platform for Action and recent work of the Economic and Social Council provided clear guidance for the intergovernmental machinery and the United Nations system to translate the concept of mainstreaming into practical reality. The Secretary-General's reform proposals had similarly emphasized the importance of mainstreaming gender in all policies and programmes. The Inter-agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality, the Commission on the Status of Women and the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), had all worked in their own spheres to advance the effectiveness of current guidelines on that subject.

She said the agenda established at Beijing was further strengthened by the fact that each of the global conferences in the present decade had made a commitment to the overall empowerment of women in specific sectoral areas. At the national level, the United Nations system supported governments in their efforts to achieve the Platform's objectives and in coordinated follow-up to the global conference. The Council's decision to focus on the advancement of women at a time when it was undertaking its triennial policy review, provided the opportunity to place more attention on gender in all development cooperation policies.

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She said there were a number of areas, however, where much work had to be done. Gender mainstreaming was not yet compulsory throughout the United Nations system. Evaluation and follow-up was not fully in place and accountability was in the infant stages. Far more precision was needed in the area of allocation of resources for gender issues. That could not be addressed through gender units alone or even through agency heads. If the system was to work, it must have the full backing, expertise and collaboration of planning and budgeting heads within the Organization's agencies.

Statements

SUNARYATI HARTONO (Indonesia), for the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, said that it was regrettable that the firm expression of commitment from the international community to advance economic and social development was often accompanied by a less-than-enthusiastic availability of resources for genuine action. One outcome of the current session of the Economic and Social Council should therefore be a firm expression of commitment to give support to developing countries in their efforts to realize conference goals. Within the Council's operational activities, vigorous efforts should be made to ensure that gender mainstreaming was achieved and that efforts were guided by the Agreed conclusions on gender mainstreaming which were adopted last year.

She said that while the Group of 77 recognized the possibilities that were presented by the reform process taking place in the United Nations, particularly in the area of gender mainstreaming, there was some concern that frameworks such as the United Nations Development Assistance Framework were new and still being tested. There was need for additional capacity-building to strengthen system-wide support for advancement of women's programmes. The Group stressed that it was national governments which had the responsibility for conference follow-up and who, with the assistance of the Organization, determined and initiated policies. In addition, financial support should be given to those governments and not to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), since governments were the ones who planned and implemented national budgets.

She said that if the United Nations system was to support the Beijing Platform for Action, then clearly the mobilization of resources was a priority. The Group nevertheless did consider the need for accountability in the operational activities of the Organization in the implementation of gender mainstreaming activities, to ensure that financial resources were optimally employed.

GEORG LENNKH (Austria), speaking on behalf of the European Union and Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, said gender and development was a crucial aspect of operational activities. Women spent their earnings to get their families out of poverty. Therefore, an investment in women was an

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investment in human development. Women's efforts to overcome poverty were often constrained by discrimination in access to and control over social economic resources. Efforts should be made to empower poor women and men so they could shape the processes and decisions that affected their lives. The European Union encouraged more United Nations development agencies to adopt a rights-based approach in that area.

The agreed conclusions on mainstreaming a gender perspective into all activities of the United Nations system, adopted by the Council last year, should be fully implemented, he said. While most United Nations entities with a development mandate had a policy on gender mainstreaming, there still seemed to be a poor understanding of gender issues. More needed to be done to integrate gender issues into the practical day-to-day planning and programming of those agencies, and senior management should assume responsibility and accountability. The Executive Boards of the funds and programmes should ask for substantive reports on how gender had been integrated into programming and planning. In addition, a system should be established to monitor and evaluate the impact of gender mainstreaming programmes.

The flow of resources to women fell short of being commensurate with their responsibilities in society, he said. It had been estimated that only 15 per cent of development resources reached women. Development agencies should establish financial systems that could track resources allocated with a gender perspective. They should also develop gender-oriented budgets that indicated whether the project, policy or programme had fully integrated gender equality. In addition, United Nations development entities with specific mandates for the empowerment of women had small budgets. Often their resource base was too limited for them to ensure that United Nations development programmes became gender-sensitive. There was a need for the strategic use of limited recourse and for strategic interventions at Headquarters. Consideration should also be given to determining if the resource base of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) provided it with the adequate capacity to fulfil its mandate.

LINDA TARR-WHELAN (United States) said her country shared the Secretary- General's assessment that the denial of women's rights perpetuated their poverty and stymied their contribution to the socio-economic advancement of their societies. The United Nations development agencies could further improve and coordinate the manner in which they supported women's human rights and work to eliminate violence against them.

Her Government believed that the success depended on institutional support from the top of each organization, she said. The Organization's agencies should recognize the value of gender units and focal points as catalysts for gender mainstreaming. Training, technical support, monitoring, evaluation and accountability were integral for success, she added.

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The United States welcomed the series of meetings convened in May with representatives of functional and regional commissions, the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), funds, programmes and NGOs to implement commitments made at United Nations conferences and to identify problems in coordination. Operational agencies for development had a crucial and unique role in enabling developing countries to take the lead in the management of their own development process. The funds and programmes constituted important vehicles for assisting countries in the realization of women's rights as human rights.

POUL NIELSON, Minister for Development Cooperation of Denmark, said gender mainstreaming involved equal opportunities, joint responsibilities and common endeavours. Policies and broad strategies were in place in many United Nations agencies, and gender focal points had been established. Yet, the efforts were uneven across the range of the agencies. Mainstreaming of gender was still not a natural and integral part of the daily work of the Organization. Great responsibility for that rested with senior management of the funds and programmes. The Council must insist on gender mainstreaming in every programme before it was submitted to the Boards for approval. Clear administrative procedures also must be introduced. In addition, gender specific monitoring systems, including "disaggregated indicators," must be developed to support those efforts.

There was a regrettable tendency to forget the gender dimension in humanitarian crises, he said. Even in times of dire need, it should be remembered that women were often marginalized and vulnerable. The joint evaluation of the emergency assistance programme in Rwanda showed that women, who represented more than two thirds of the population, were often systematically discriminated against in favour of men. The design and elaboration of sector programme cooperation could act as a means to ensure ownership, efficiency and impact in achieving gender equality and poverty reduction. The challenge was to understand that gender mainstreaming was not an additional political aspect. It was an integral necessity for creating sustainable social change.

ASTRID FISCHEL-VOLIO, First Vice-President of Costa Rica, said that the steps taken in her country since the Beijing Conference were primarily designed to expand women's involvement in national development. Her Government recognized the rights and special needs of women and had implemented many programmes aimed at wiping out the specific types of discrimination leveled against women and giving them their rightful place in society. Since the Beijing Conference, Costa Rica had moved from merely providing help to women to providing gender equity. Government efforts in that area, which had acquired national dimensions, now required the broadest possible convergence of civil society, including NGOs.

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She said there had been a change in the way her Government dealt with women's problems. Laws were in place to address a variety of negative issues, including sexual harassment. There had also been a number of electoral reforms aimed at improving women's rights. In the workplace, new reforms in favour of women had addressed even the trade unions. Costa Rica was firmly committed to identifying and implementing measures that would guarantee the full human rights of women and girls. It was also steadfast in its resolve to grant females economic independence. Her country was firmly committed to ensuring that women's and girl's potential was developed on a par to that of men and boys.

ABDALLAH BAALI (Algeria) said the Beijing Platform for Action must be maintained, followed up and improved. While the implementation of the Platform was incumbent, first and foremost, on individual governments, the United Nations also had a role to play in the follow-up. Algeria commended the efforts made in the Organization to include gender equality in all programmes and policies, as well as in operational activities, programmes and funds.

While women had rights which no one could deny, they also had needs, especially in developing countries, including employment, education and health, he said. By meeting those needs, women could more actively pursue their rights and make a contribution to the economic and social spheres of their countries. Financing of the efforts outlined in the Beijing Platform for Action should be ensured through additional resources. The international community should devote more resources to development objectives identified by the Beijing Conference.

Algeria had established legislation guaranteeing every citizen the same rights and subjecting them to the same duties, he said. Women had always taken an active part in the life of the country. Algeria had participated in the Beijing Conference and had begun undertaking policies that corresponded with its outcome. His Government had established a standing committee to follow up on the recommendations, as well as a national council for women.

RADHIA ACHOURI (Tunisia) said her country welcomed the establishment of institutional structures within the United Nations to integrate gender issues into the work of the Organization. The actions of the Beijing Platform and the Organization deserved support, not only because of the critical areas they addressed but also because of the opportunities they provided to women to raise their living standards and arrest poverty. United Nations efforts in promoting better eduction for women and girls, and better opportunities in the workplace were commendable. Since Beijing, Tunisia was concentrating its national efforts on development projects, particularly in the areas of women's health and family planning. In the area of family planning, Tunisia had achieved the lowest population growth rate in Africa.

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She said the contributions made by women to economic development in Tunisia had qualitatively increased. The number of women involved in agriculture had moved up to 20 per cent and women were now represented in the judiciary and the municipal structures. National efforts, however, needed to be backed up by the right kind of international support. Countries must not lose sight of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the international community and the United Nations needed to adopt policies that would reinforce national efforts to address gender issues.

HENRIQUE VALLE (Brazil) said field operations in Brazil illustrated the benefits of a genuine partnership among government, local authorities, civil society, special agencies and the United Nations programmes to promote capacity-building and resource mobilization for the enhancement of the participation of women in development.

After Beijing, his Government had established an inter-agency committee on gender, he said. It performed a vital role in improving communication channels among all government agencies concerned. The Committee also facilitated joint efforts by government authorities and the civil society to implement the Platform for Action. The UNIFEM was playing a leading role in Brazil in addressing women's needs and in promoting gender awareness. Other current projects focus on equal participation of women in the local decision- making process; women's leadership training; and gender issues in judiciary affairs.

Brazil was concerned about the decline in contributions to the core resources for development activities of the United Nations system, he said. That decline reduced technical cooperation activities, a situation which might jeopardize the United Nations work for the least developed countries. Brazil welcomed the ongoing initiatives aimed at identifying new mechanisms of fund raising and mobilizing additional resources through an increased partnership with the Bretton Woods institutions. Yet, extrabudgetary and non-course resources should not be a substitute for the need to re-establish the level of core resources. In addition, activities of the United Nations system for development cooperation would have to adapt to the changing requirements and priorities of programme countries in order to preserve its relevance and impact on development.

MATS KARLSSON (Sweden) said it was not enough to say that a reduction of poverty, would help a lot of women. If women were empowered, then there would be a chance of eradicating poverty. Females needed to have their full share of access to and control over local resources, to secure land rights and to get access to credit. Investment in women was the key to development.

Increased democracy would not simply lead to the empowerment of women, he said. When women organized and secured their human rights, there would be movement towards a democratic culture. Hard action would also be needed on

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human rights issues of great concern to girls and women. He cited the integrity of women's bodies, reproductive choice, female genital mutilation, sexual abuse and violence against women as issues surrounded by taboos.

A clear strategy for gender mainstreaming was necessary in the United Nations, he said. Responsibility for that effort should rest at the highest levels of the United Nations system. His country was prepared to provide extra funding to support the work of the United Nations Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, to help establish a coherent system for gender mainstreaming.

ANWARUL KARIM CHOWDHURY (Bangladesh) said the operational activities for development should promote capacity-building and mobilize resources for the advancement of women and their enhanced participation in development. In achieving that, there was a need to focus on a number of priority areas such as the elimination of violence. Bangladesh had taken important national and regional initiatives in that regard. He acknowledged the role of the Trust Fund of the UNIFEM in supporting actions for combating violence against females. It was a good example of an action-oriented operational mechanism. Bangladesh also believed that women's human rights was another area that required more focused and innovative attention in the operational activities of the United Nations.

He said his delegation noted the lack of references in the report of the Secretary-General (document E/1998/54) to the need for new and additional resources for gender mainstreaming. Additional funds must be made available to the developing countries to make the post-Beijing national initiatives successful. Bangladesh was also concerned that there had been insufficient resources for operational activities for development. That situation had been further aggravated by the decline of core resources. If the trend continued, it would adversely affect the national efforts of development; efforts to implement commitments of the Beijing Platform for Action would be seriously affected. The momentum of progress generated after Beijing through national undertakings should not be allowed to falter due to lack of resources.

GUSTAVO ALBIN (Mexico) said at the Beijing Conference, global recognition for women's rights was achieved. The United Nations system had been working to transform the outcome of that conference into reality, including through system-wide implementation and follow-up. There was still a long way to go and the continued process would demand constant and disciplined efforts.

The UNDP had promoted the allocation of at least 20 per cent of its resources to women's advancement and to mainstreaming a gender perspective, he continued. That policy should be adopted by other bodies, as should be a system of verifying the incorporation of a gender perspective. The United

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Nations should also promote the ratification and full implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Inter-agency coordination and technical cooperation had supported implementation of action plan, he said. In Mexico, such efforts had allowed for an exchange among the Government, educational institutions, NGOs and rural women's organizations. There were now statistical indicators to track women's status throughout the country. Mexico had initiated international cooperative projects on technical matters, with the participation of the International Labour Organization (ILO), employers and workers organizations aimed at establishing more and better jobs for Mexican women. The UNIFEM was coordinating a project to ensure that women could lead lives free of violence.

WALTER FUST, Observer for Switzerland, said the advancement of women and gender balance were key elements for sustainable development. His Government gave special attention to the gender perspective in its development activities, particularly in guidelines for programmes in the field. Special training programmes were obligatory for all development staff. In the United Nations system, he said Switzerland appreciated the gender balance initiatives in new programming frameworks and the identification of focal points and training efforts. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework should lead to better follow-up to global conferences. Gender balance and advancement of women should be given pride of place.

The capacity enhancement of those institutions dealing with development activities was not sufficient, he said. United Nations bodies should also strengthen the capacity of partners in programme countries. Additional resources were necessary to ensure the success of activities to advance the status of women and gender equity, particularly UNIFEM and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In addition, the gender dimension should be taken into account when choosing development programmes and projects.

FELIPE MABILANGAN (Philippines) said that while the establishment of a system-wide institutional infrastructure was an important first step in implementing the Beijing Platform, more needed to be done. The success of the United Nation system's efforts in gender mainstreaming could come only from results achieved at the country level. It was crucial therefore that the system intensified its efforts to make gender mainstreaming an integral part of country programme frameworks. The gender perspective must be mainstreamed in every country strategy note, country cooperation frameworks and where applicable, the United Nations Development Assistance Framework. The resident coordinator system should play a pivotal role in the exercise. Under the overall guidance of governments, it should mobilize the United Nations country presence to mainstream the gender perspective in a coherent and coordinated manner.

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A key factor for success in gender mainstreaming, he said, was a stronger system of accountability at all levels, particularly at the level of senior management. The gender units or focal points for women could carry out their assigned tasks only with the strong commitment and support of senior management. Top management should therefore be held directly accountable for progress achieved in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in their respective organizations. For that purpose, he said, the Council should call upon the governing bodies of the funds, programmes and specialized agencies to establish well-defined and time-bound targets for gender mainstreaming and hold their respective executive heads responsible for producing the desired results. He also called for new and additional resources to ensure the achievement of the goals of the Beijing Conference.

CATHERINE BERTINI, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said hunger afflicted women and their young children far more than men. In almost every society in the world, women gathered, prepared and served the food, but most of the time they ate last. The WFP was mainstreaming gender because it morally right and it was the most efficient way to approach its work. The WFP had altered its food distribution to channel food aid through women and give them control over managing and allocating resources.

One aspect of the gender dimension of hunger was that poor women often passed hunger to the succeeding generation, she said. Maternal malnutrition virtually guaranteed that children would suffer stunted growth, be susceptible to disease and be impaired intellectually. The WFP was working to devote more of its resources to projects targeted at expectant mothers by increasing the number and intensity of development projects. The WFP also now required that all its school feeding programmes devote 50 per cent of their resources to girls. That was not easy, since too many systems were more interested in feeding boys.

In order to succeed in changing its focus to emphasize women, the WFP needed to develop a new operational strategy, she said. It had designed a system of gender focal points throughout the organization. Every development project, emergency operation and country programme was reviewed to determine if it would have a positive impact on the lives of poor women. Yet, the Programme could not succeed unless it made great strides in hiring women. All managers were now specifically rated on their efforts to reach the Secretary- General's goal for the hiring of women.

MASAKI KONISHI (Japan) recalled that it had been declared at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing that governments had the primary responsibility for implementing the Beijing Platform for Action, that commitment at the highest political level was essential to its implementation and that governments should take a leading role in coordinating, monitoring and assessing progress in the advancement of women.

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Further, the Japanese delegation considered it important that gender mainstreaming should be fully considered in all follow-up activities of United Nations global conferences. In that connection, Japan, the United Nations and the Global Coalition for Africa would hold the Second Tokyo International Conference on African Development this fall, at which gender mainstreaming and the participation of women in development would be priorities of the Agenda for Action for African Development towards the Twenty-first Century.

He said Japan had attached priority to promoting the concept of gender and women in development in its official development assistance (ODA) and had taken measures to that end, including the appointment of gender focal points. In 1992, Japan adopted its ODA charter, incorporating a gender perspective as an important element in the effective implementation of ODA.

At the 1995 Beijing conference, Japan had affirmed its intention to focus on education, health and economic and social participation for the empowerment of women in implementing its development assistance. He said efforts to maintain a gender perspective were carefully monitored as projects were formulated and implemented. Examples of those includes the construction of vocational training centres for women, cooperation in the fields of maternal and child health care and family planning, and training women to be government officials.

Under the Common Agenda adopted by the United States and Japan, both countries had worked together since 1995 in the fields of girls' education and micro-enterprise. In the former area, Japanese experts had been assigned to Guatemala. In promoting micro-enterprises, Japan and the United States had jointly provided financial support to non-governmental organizations in Cambodia that were engaged in extending microcredit, mainly to women.

In addition to contributing $0.5 million to the Trust Fund in Support of Action to Eliminate Violence against Women, which was created within UNIFEM, Japan contributed $1.76 million to UNIFEM in the 1997 financial year, he said. Japan also contributed $80,000 to the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women.

DUBRAVKA SIMONOVIC (Croatia) said there had been increased activity in Croatia towards developing national machinery for equality for women and the National Plan for Action. The Government had established the National Commission for Equality on 9 May 1996. It also adopted a national policy of equality, which contained an analysis of the status of women in Croatia and defined strategic objectives, as well as measures for implementation. The NGOs had been called on to form a council to work together with the Commission for Equality. The common misperception that Croatian women enjoyed the same rights as men was changing, and the Commission, as well as numerous NGOs, was calling for the proportional participation of women in public life, including high political positions.

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She went on to say that the percentage of women in high political posts was lower than before the transition to democracy and the market economy. That trend was beginning to change, in particular at the level of deputy and assistant minister. In addition, the proportion of women at the sub- ministerial level was more than 20 per cent. There were also a growing number of different non-governmental organizations that dealt with women's issues. Gender equality was spelled out in the Croatian Constitution and Croatia had ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Convention had legal status above national laws. A special report on the suffering of women during the war in Croatia had been prepared and presented to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in January.

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