ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL TOLD OF GOOD COOPERATION AMONG UN AGENCIES IN 'GENDER MAINSTREAMING'

Press Release
ECOSOC/5770

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL TOLD OF GOOD COOPERATION AMONG UN AGENCIES IN 'GENDER MAINSTREAMING'

The Economic and Social Council this evening concluded the high-level debate of its segment on operational activities for international development cooperation.

The segment, which began this morning, addressed implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference for Women and enhancing the participation of women in development.

There existed excellent cooperation among United Nations agencies in joint gender mainstreaming initiatives, said a representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Such activities had been undertaken in capacity development, policy coordination and operations support at the country level. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework was an important opportunity to strengthen that collaboration and coordinate the monitoring of the impact of those efforts.

Statements were made by Zambia, Iraq and Peru.

The Council was also addressed by representatives of the World Bank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

The Council will meet again at 10 a.m. on Friday, 10 July, to hold an informal dialogue with the heads of United Nations funds and programmes.

Council Work Programme

The Economic and Social Council met this evening to conclude its segment on operational activities for international development cooperation. During this segment, which opened this morning with a high-level debate, the Council is addressing the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the close of the 1995 Fourth World Conference for Women and enhancing the participation of women in development. (For more background information, see press release ECOSOC/5768 of 9 July.)

Statements

JOANNE SALOP, Director of Operations Policy and Strategy and Interim Director for Gender and Development of the World Bank, said that since 1995 the World Bank had moved to implement the Beijing Platform for Action. It had undertaken that work both in its policy environment and its operational work. It had been emphasizing the dual themes of efficiency and equity. Those two themes needed to go beyond individual development projects and should be addressed in a fundamental and strategic way. To that end, the Bank was utilizing the Country Assistance Strategy as a strategic entry point for ensuring that gender was mainstreamed. The Bank was also going further, including through identifying countries with the greatest inequalities, where gender would receive special attention during preparation of the Strategy.

In the coming years, the World Bank would continue to mainstream the gender issue throughout its operational and research work, she said. As an institution, it would focus principally on education, legal systems and leadership. Those three themes were the most critical for promoting gender equality in developing countries. The Bank would also be increasing its efforts to work with external partners. It was already cooperating with multilateral and bilateral donors, and with non-governmental organizations, to provide for micro-enterprises. Success required creating the right institutional and operational frameworks and partnerships, as well as winning the hearts and minds of the Bank's staff, clients and partners.

NINA SIBAL, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said the report of the Secretary-General (document E/1998/54) had not provided an analysis of operational activities. That would have helped to establish what Member States' priorities and choices had been in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action. The UNESCO had attempted a small study of its own and had found that there was no automatic link between the framework of programming on the one hand, and the joint activities by United Nations agencies in the field of gender issues on the other.

She said a new structure was established at UNESCO in the last two years, with an overall gender mainstreaming coordinator, two major project managers, and gender focal points. That greatly enhanced the capacity of the Organization to implement the gender concerns which had emanated from the

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recent global conferences. Ten special projects which had now been carried out dealt with five of the total 12 critical areas of concern identified in the Beijing Platform. Those and related projects constituted a framework for operationalizing UNESCO's programmes designed for the advancement of women. Her organization was also gaining positive experience in operationalizing the strong demand for indicators. In Africa, statisticians and planners, many of them women, were trained in methods and techniques for collecting and processing gender-disaggregated data, and how to produce gender-sensitive indicators in the field of education. Another success story was UNESCO's Guidelines on non-sexist language, she added.

She said UNESCO was exploring women's contribution to peace and more specifically to the culture of peace. Its particular aim was to help women express their views and expectations as to how peace could be achieved or maintained in societies, and how their knowledge and skills -- peaceful conflict resolution and sense of solidarity -- could be applied in practice from community to international levels.

KERSTIN TRONE, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said the importance of gender issues was constantly emphasized in all activities of the UNFPA. Gender equity and equality was a cross-cutting theme in all its programme areas. Men and women needed to participate as partners in all aspects of population and development. The Fund also recognized the important role of men in achieving women's empowerment. The UNFPA had undertaken several initiatives, both at Headquarters and in the field, to ensure that gender perspectives were incorporated into all programme and technical activities. Those included: establishing a gender theme group; revising guidelines for mainstreaming gender in population and development; and developing a generic gender, population and development training manual. The Fund also had the highest percentage of female staff in the professional category and in senior management positions, compared to similar organizations in the United Nations system.

She went on to say that the UNFPA recognized the human rights factor in gender, population and development activities, especially as it relates to reproductive and sexual health and rights, sexual violence, harmful traditional practices, reproductive health in emergency situations and civil unrest. Gender mainstreaming was an ongoing process, and operational strategies should promote gender responsive outcomes, as well as national strategies, which aimed at structural changes that created an enabling environment. Gender mainstreaming also must be specifically nurtured with support from the highest policy level, and the actions undertaken must be monitored. In addition, every effort should be made to ensure the rightful place of the girl child in the socio-economic process.

EIMI WATANABE, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau for Development Policy of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said

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the advancement of women was at the core of the work of the UNDP. The key to successful gender mainstreaming lay in capacity-building in its offices and its counterparts, through the development of skills, knowledge and behavioural and attitudinal change. The UNDP also recognized that management profiles and accountability frameworks were integrally linked to programme priorities and outcomes at the country level. Therefore, UNDP management had demonstrated a strengthened commitment to the advancement of women. The number of women in D-2 and in resident representative positions had doubled since 1994. In addition, 30 per cent of its Executive Committee members was now female. The new policy set forth management accountability measures to meet targets at all levels. It also established a recruitment policy in senior positions exclusively targeted to women and specific commitments to improve the quality of the workplace.

While much had been achieved in gender mainstreaming, there existed several important changes, she said. A principal need was to hold managers accountable for gender mainstreaming principles, practices and financial commitments. The UNDP's new policy addressed that challenge. The UNDP was also developing a system of better tracking indicators. It was working to improve information and communication systems, with a focus on learning and sharing good practices. There had been excellent cooperation among United Nations agencies in joint gender mainstreaming initiatives in capacity development, policy coordination and operational support at the country level. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework was an important opportunity to strengthen that collaboration and coordinate monitoring of the impact of those efforts.

RASHIM AHLUWALIA, for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the Federation encouraged all of its regional and country delegations to designate gender focal points. There were six regional and country delegations in which gender focal points had been appointed. Initiatives were also under way to appoint a short-term gender specialist to the two Federation regional delegations in Asia. In Africa, Asia and Europe there were a total of 50 national societies which had gender focal points. The Federation would review selected programmes with a gender perspective, putting a special emphasis on disaster relief operations. It also planned to revise its data collection system. The main emphasis for regional programmes in East Africa for 1999 would be on developing tools to monitor the gender sensitivity of the programmes targeting refugees, health and institutional development. Gender theme groups would be established in three national societies to review programmes and develop case studies in order to document best practices. She hoped to share experiences with the United Nations system and others.

She went on to say that gender mainstreaming as a cross-sectoral issue was fully reflected in regional conferences of national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies throughout Africa and Europe during 1996-1997, and strategies at mainstream gendering in activities of the non-signatories in

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Asia-Pacific and the Americas would be discussed in forthcoming regional conferences. Some of the regional plans were not being translated into specific regional programmes. She expressed concern about the situation of women in times of crisis where their rights were not respected, and where they were subjected to greater violence and exploitation. In that context, she welcomed the inclusion of women's rights in the work of the recent session of the Commission on Human Rights as well as the consideration given to gender issues by the Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs and for Peace and Security.

HUMPHREY B. KUNDA (Zambia) said that gender mainstreaming was part of a package. There were several important components of the Beijing Platform for Action that must fit together in order to achieve the equal status of women and men. It was important that before policy decisions were taken, an analysis of their impact on women and men was carried out. That analysis must be followed by concrete actions and measurable goals. Policy analysis must not become the goal -- it was only a means to an end. Gender mainstreaming was extremely important in the stages of setting national objectives. It could not, however, become a substitute for action. His delegation felt that it was important to achieve policy coherence in gender mainstreaming within the system as quickly as possible and then supplement that with valuable action.

He said the issue of capacity-building was an important one, particularly to the developing countries. In Africa, women continued to face enormous obstacles despite the fact that African women had made energetic efforts to be heard. They were pressing for an expansion of women's economic and social opportunities and the advancement of their rights. That unfortunately had not translated into significant improvement of access to resources or increased their decision-making power. The situation highlighted the criticaL need for strengthening women's capacity and skills and expanding the opportunities for women to more fully develop their leadership roles. Gender equality was a prerequisite for development and Member States had to commit themselves to implementing policies that improved the lives of women.

KHALED AL-HITTI (Iraq) said Iraqi women enjoyed equal status with men, which was guaranteed by the country's constitution. Iraq had also adhered to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Unfortunately, the initiatives undertaken by his Government in order to improve the status of women had been paralyzed by the economic embargo imposed on Iraq in the past eight years. It had affected all spheres of Iraqi society, but in particular, the most vulnerable, including women, children and the elderly. The objectives of Beijing could not be applied in a great number of countries, including Iraq, because of the spread of vengeance through the use of sanctions.

One week ago, a UNICEF report stated that the major problem affecting women and children in Iraq was malnutrition, he said. The number of children

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born below normal weight had increased to 20.8 per cent. Between 1990 and 1994, the child mortality rate doubled. The number of women dying in childbirth had increased from 17 to 310 per 100,000 from 1990 to 1996. Sanctions were another form of waging war. A report of the International Committee of the Red Cross said that the sanctions had imposed a state of siege on an entire people. Thousands of people were forced to sell their belongings in order to buy necessities to survive. He called on the international community to put an end to the aggressive policies that had hindered the economic and social development of the Iraqi people under the cover of United Nations instruments. AURORA RODRIGUEZ, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), said her agency's Action Plan had three main components: the promotion of gender-sensitive industrial policies and strategies to facilitate the integration of women in industry; entrepreneurship development and human resources development to facilitate the access by women to new and non- traditional types of industry and skills; and the promotion of a network of investment and information centres for women to provide them with relevant information on matters related to industry. Since the Beijing Conference UNIDO's activities had focused on four areas: gender sensitization; research and analysis; skill enhancement of women; and industry and development and dissemination of appropriate technologies for rural women. She highlighted other areas of involvement by the agency in gender issues and said that UNIDO was committed to mainstreaming the gender perspective in its programmes. DAUL MATUTE (Peru) said the Beijing Platform for Action was a trigger that acted to focus attention on women's issues in Peru. Yet, hyper-inflation and high levels of terrorist violence rendered the problem of poverty far more acute. It became indispensable to raise the standard of living, so women could enjoy the economic opportunities they deserved. Women had become the focus of human development. His Government had attached priority to a national literacy programme and established a network of literacy trainers who served more than 500,000 illiterate men and women. Peru hoped to reduce the literacy rate to 4 per cent by the year 2000. In addition, a national food and nutrition plan was recently adopted to concentrate efforts and resources in the private and social sectors. The goal was to reduce from 25 to 18 per cent the level of chronic malnutrition in children under five years of age. Peru had based its gender mainstreaming programme on a permanent dialogue between government, the private sector and non-governmental organizations, he said. In order to judge the effectiveness of that exercise, his Government had established a Ministry for the Promotion of Women and Human Development. It sought to establish and strengthen the position of women through policies and programmes in social development and the eradication of poverty. The Ministry aimed to promote a greater role for women in the social, economic and political sectors. The true implementation of a gender perspective would be achieved when it was reflected in practice, he said. The downturn in official development assistance (ODA) did not reflect the level of interest expressed by States during United Nations conferences and summits. New levels of funding were needed if concrete results were to be achieved.

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