NATIONAL MACHINERIES FOR WOMEN'S ADVANCEMENT MUST BE INCLUSIVE, WIDE-REACHING, CATALYST FOR CHANGE AND SHOULD CONDUCT RESEARCH ON WOMEN'S UNPAID WORK

4 March 1999

Press Release
WOM/1107

NATIONAL MACHINERIES FOR WOMEN'S ADVANCEMENT MUST BE INCLUSIVE, WIDE-REACHING, CATALYST FOR CHANGE AND SHOULD CONDUCT RESEARCH ON WOMEN'S UNPAID WORK

19990304 Experts Tell Status of Women Commission During Panel Discussion on National Machinery for Advancement of Women

Could there be equal partnership between the woman "in the big house and the woman who scrubs her bathroom"? an expert asked the Commission on the Status of Women this morning during a panel discussion on national machinery for the advancement of women -- one of 12 critical areas of concern identified in the Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women.

Continuing, Glenda Simms, Executive Director of Jamaica's Bureau of Women's Affairs, said classism, racism and sexism must all be tackled at the same time. National mechanisms must therefore be inclusive and wide-reaching. Since no group or person had the answer to all the issues, partnership was needed between groups, sectors, countries and even between those who called themselves feminists and those who did not.

Rounaq Jahan of Bangladesh, Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University, told the 45-member Commission that government ministries could contribute to closing gender gaps in their respective areas, such as education, health, agriculture and labour. To avoid duplication and make the best use of limited resources, national machineries should strive to be catalysts for change, rather than bodies of implementation.

On occasion, however, highly visible projects could be undertaken, and used to engage other ministries, she continued. For example, national machineries could conduct research to illustrate what national accounts would look like if women's unpaid work was taken into account, and publicize those results.

Heightened visibility, or the "politics of presence", was crucial to advancing women, Shirin M. Rai, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Women's Studies at the University of Warwick in Coventry, United Kingdom, emphasized. In addition to insisting on greater political participation, national

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machineries should also address a second kind of politics, or "deliberative politics", which referred to an institution's capacity to represent its constituents with some autonomy. That ability was critical to the role of national machineries as catalysts in national policy.

Jaraslova Moserova, Vice-chair of the European Integration Committee of the Senate of the Czech Republic, said that any number of legal instruments would not be able to root out the customary attitudes. In her country, women's "duty was beauty". During half a century of totalitarian rule, political discrimination eclipsed recognition of other forms of discrimination. The Government had only weeks ago established a committee to promote the advancement of women.

The Commission will meet again at 3:30 p.m. today to conclude its dialogue on the topic of institutional mechanisms.

Commission Work Programme

The Commission on the Status of Women met this morning to consider "Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women: implementation of strategic objectives and action in the critical areas of concern: institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women". The Commission planned to hold a panel discussion and dialogue on women and health.

A report of the Secretary-General on the thematic issues before the Commission (document E/CN.6/1999/4) contains a summary of the results of two expert group meetings convened by the Division for the Advancement of Women of Department of Economic and Social Affairs in 1998. The meetings focused on the critical areas of concern to be considered at the current session.

On the critical area of concern "institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women", the meeting considered the role of national machineries in mainstreaming gender in all programmes and policies at the national level. The meeting also addressed the relationship of national machineries with civil society and the accountability of governments for gender mainstreaming. The meeting also endorsed a sample project to strengthen national machineries, to be carried out by the Division for the Advancement of Women. It requested the Secretariat to summarize the "best practices" described in the experts' papers, in order to provide governments and national machineries with practical examples.

The Platform for Action states that in order to be effective, national machineries should be located at the highest possible level of government; they should involve non-governmental organizations; and have sufficient human and financial resources and the opportunity to influence development of all government policies. While the Platform for Action provides a very broad and comprehensive mandate for gender mainstreaming, the role and responsibilities of national machineries in translating this conceptual approach into practice are less known and differ from country to country.

The expert group meeting on the topic made a number of recommendations to governments on how to strengthen their national machineries. Among those recommendations are that they should:

-- Locate the gender coordination unit at the highest level of government, falling under the responsibility of the President, Prime Minister, or Cabinet Minister. That would give the national machinery the political authority needed for its mandate of coordinating the mainstreaming process across all ministries.

-- Ensure that senior management in each ministry or agency takes responsibility for integrating a gender perspective in all policies. For that

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purpose, ministers should ensure that senior managers get appropriate assistance from gender experts or gender focal points.

-- Create separate structures for the promotion of gender equality in personnel policy to avoid confusion with the gender mainstreaming functions of the national machinery.

The expert group also said that governments should ensure sustainable financing of national machineries through national budgets and that national machineries were staffed at adequate levels with appropriate seniority, relevant qualifications and gender expertise. A clear mandate was a prerequisite for the efficient functioning of national machineries. The national machinery at the governmental level is a catalyst for gender mainstreaming not an agency for policy implementation.

National machineries should undertake the following functions:

-- Ensuring appropriate gender training for top-level government management and encouraging gender training at all levels of government;

-- Developing methods and tools for gender mainstreaming such as gender impact assessment, guidelines for gender training, and for gender audit across all government activities;

-- Collecting and disseminating best practice models of gender mainstreaming;

-- Coordinating the development and regular updating of national action plans to implement the Beijing Platform for Action and reporting on their implementation to parliaments and international bodies; and

-- Cooperating with the mass media to mobilize public opinion on gender issues.

Panel Discussion on Institutional Mechanisms

ROUNAQ JAHAN, Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, outlined the role and function of national machineries, based on her paper "National Machineries for Gender Equality", which was distributed to the Commission. She focused on eight priority tasks for national machineries. First, the roles and functions of national machineries must be clarified. Their main functions involved policy development, coordination, monitoring and leadership. National mechanisms should work as catalysts rather than as implementers.

Next, there was need to get support of key allies, such as government officials and leaders of civil society, she continued. One way to garner such

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support was to encourage the national women's movement to lobby political actors. Also, political actors should be asked to take specific actions. Third, national machineries should be involved less in implementation and more in policy development. They should encourage agencies to establish consultative mechanisms with civil society members. As for the private sector, it should play a "standard-setting role".

Fourth, recognizing that national machineries were not likely to obtain increased resources in the future, they should leverage resources from other agencies, she said. Her fifth point was that the coordination and monitoring functions of national machineries should be activated, in part by focusing on monitoring progress of national plans of action. Such mechanisms should act as a "resource for gender mainstreaming", meaning that they should be aware of how to locate information as needed.

Accountability measures should be devised, with particular focus on public accountability, she continued. There should be public hearings on the progress of each country's national action plan. Lastly, the universality of responsibility did not mean that national mechanisms should not take a leadership role. They should act strategically and build support. During the current period of globalization, gender mainstreaming was a way to get significant results with relatively little resources.

JARASLOVA MOSEROVA, Vice-chair of the European Integration Committee at the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, said that women's advancement had been neglected during the five decades in which her country had striven for democracy. A totalitarian regime had prevailed for nearly half a century, during which time the political discrimination was so strong that any other discrimination was not registered. Thus, gender discrimination, racial and ethnic prejudices were not accorded attention; the main area of discrimination centred on non-party members against the Government.

She said that the aftermath of such neglect, even after the country had regained its freedom and democracy, was still felt to this day. Even educated women, of which there was a huge percentage in the Czech Republic, were still unwilling to focus on women's issues or to participate in them. Non- governmental organizations (NGOs) only began to make headway after the democratic regime had taken hold. In that connection, several countries with similar political histories had teamed up to apply pressure on their governments to mainstream gender equality. Only in recent weeks had her Government set up a special committee to promote women's advancement and deal with the issues they confronted. The question remained about how much pressure should be applied in a country where people were unwilling to be dictated to or regulated anymore. Even quotas aimed at promoting equal employment among men and women would be rejected.

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Although the number of women in parliament was much lower than in the past, the few who were in the Government were influential, she said. Thus, the legal instruments would be created, owing also to the efforts of non- governmental organizations. But even all the legal instruments available would not root out the customary attitude that women's "duty was beauty". That was the image portrayed by the media in her country; that was the only picture that young people saw. The potential role of the media in that regard was enormous, even amid that distorted image of men and women "petrified" by prevailing prejudices. The issue of ethnic minority women also must be addressed, for those individuals needed even more encouragement and protection. It was within women's power to eradicate prejudices. In their hands was the education of young children, making it possible for adult women to break the vicious cycle of handing over distrust and prejudice against women and minorities from generation to generation.

GLENDA P. SIMMS, Executive Director, Bureau of Women's Affairs of Jamaica, stressed the need for inclusivity and partnerships in national machineries. The physical structure of a nation's machinery was important, since without equitable space, it was clear that there was no political will - - a concept that transcended statements and platitudes. Political will had to do with translating vision into activities that reached the poorest women in society.

She acknowledged that the relationship between government and non- government was, at best, tenuous. To create a successful national machinery, therefore, it was important to foster a climate of trust. That would require governmental will to establish meaningful partnership, and that, in turn, required adequate funding for the non-governmental groups. As for NGOs, they were sometimes not truly representative, being instead "grand clubs of tea sippers and cheese eaters". It was crucial that government and NGOs be representative. With that, the dynamic tension between the two sectors was not necessarily a bad thing.

Poverty eradication must be integrated into national machineries, and their activities must be rationalized in light of each country's economy, she said. That required real awareness of national affairs.

At the same time that the circumstances of national machineries was important, it was true that many national machineries with adequate funding did very little, she said. She described a group of women who called themselves "gender consultants", traversing the globe as hired experts. But no person understood all the issues involved, she stressed, and many persons who were not feminists had skills to offer. The best skills must be applied to the cause, the best resources garnered and utilized.

A class analysis was essential, she said. Could there be equal partnership between the "Misses in the big house and the woman who scrubs her

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bathroom"? she asked. Classism, racism and sexism must be broken down at the same time. In the Caribbean, there were strong links between countries' national mechanisms. Such regionalization was of utmost importance in light of globalization.

The question was how to develop the political force to ensure that ministers of finance recognize that macroeconomic planning addressed the interests of the poorest women of society, she said. "We must return to the community and build national machineries from the ground up." Those who led national machineries should stop pretending they have all the answers. "Make use of the space you have", she said. The grass was not necessarily greener on the other side.

SHIRIN M. RAI, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Women's Studies at the University of Warwick in Coventry, United Kingdom, said that her focus was not centred on the issue of governmental accountability, but on the national machineries themselves. The objective was to strengthen the national machineries, rather than undermine their relevance. Those needed to build strong relationships with civil society, and demonstrate their effectiveness in influencing policy outcomes. In order to do so, national machineries needed to be aware of issues of accountability to their constituencies -- women's groups, academics and activists -- in their multiplicity.

Holding governments accountable could make sense only if the national machineries were also held accountable, she said. The democratization of governance required that the democratization of national machineries also be taken seriously. Only in recent history had the women's movement truly begun to engage with State institutions in any serious way. Women had formerly been wary of engaging with government institutions, not only because of the men who ran them, but because of the culture of those institutions. The NGOs and women's movements should continue that engagement and become equal partners with national machineries, rather than remain adversaries.

She said she was struck by Ms. Jahan's insistence that national machineries were catalysts for change and not institutions for implementing policies. In that sense, gender mainstreaming could be integrated at all levels of policy-making. Representing women's interests required visibility; it was important that national machineries insist on greater participation of women in political institutions. In other words, the "politics of presence" needed to be taken seriously. The second type of politics that national machineries should address was "deliberative politics", which concerned the ability of an institution to represent the interests of their constituencies with enough autonomy to be able to negotiate with other interests. That was extremely important if national machineries were to participate optimally as catalysts.

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In the context of globalization, whereby structural adjustment policies for many third world countries and welfare reforms in many Western countries were leading to the further marginalization of women, national machineries needed to be able to build alliances with all kinds of groups. To do so required both visibility and autonomy -- then accountability would become an even more pressing requirement. Her interest was to strengthen national machineries, and not to undermine them. In that respect, balancing autonomy with accountability was her primary concern. "Operationalizing" accountability depended on a repetitive airing of the question -- why were women not more visible in politics and business -- at every opportunity.

Ms. JAHAN first responded to questions about how national mechanisms should avoid duplication and promote, rather than implement, women's issues. The primary reason for this emphasis was that governments already had sectoral ministries in place. For example, the ministries of education, health and agriculture each played an important role in terms of closing gender gaps.

Turning then to a question on how to address women's unremunerated work, she said that finance or statistics ministries should be primarily responsible. However, the national women's machinery could take on one or two highly visible aspects, such as a research study on what national accounts would look like if women's unpaid work was taken into account, and then publicize the results. However, such actions should be used as a tool to engage other ministries.

Regarding comments on an "identity crisis" among national machineries, and the need for both political and ideological ownership, she said that many countries were experiencing a backlash from right-wing conservatives that counteracted earlier advances. In many countries, the base of support for the women's movement was still very weak, and there was urgent need for work, by all kinds of groups, on the ideological front.

Ms. MOSEROVA said that the importance of women's willingness to enter politics should be further emphasized. How many women representing NGOs would be willing to undergo the stress and strain of an election campaign? she asked.

Ms. RAI said she would be very concerned if the national machineries were not decentralized in some respects, taking into account the specific characters of the governmental systems. The importance of decentralization lay at two different levels of governance: one concerned the question of accountability of the national machineries themselves. Their catalytic performance at the national level needed to be echoed at the grass-roots level. Everyone had referred to the expressed commitments by national governments to mainstream gender issues, but there was a general lack of implementation of those commitments. In the absence of decentralization, the problem accumulated -- even though national governments were saying yes,

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parallel local machineries needed to "egg them on" and insist on the implementation of their mainstreaming policies.

She said she was also interested in the distinction, not only between promotion and implementation, but also between public and private involvement, particularly how to address the issue. An area of success of the national machinery's commitment to women in India was its ability to have an advocacy dialogue with the media, and with media ownership becoming increasingly differentiated in India, so-called "fillers" on women's issues were appearing on television screens.

Ms. SIMMS, responding to questions posed by the Chinese delegation concerning grass-roots women's groups, said that national women's organizations and so-called umbrella groups were not necessarily known in rural areas and among the poor. Thus, the national machinery had to make sure that women had the autonomy to develop their groups at grass-roots level. Another problem was the presence of duplication. There were "fiefdoms" in governments -- everyone wanted to see his or her own name in lights some place -- but that duplication must be removed. Simply using the word "women" in the description of a national plan was not enough; implementation was imperative, and national machinery staff must collaborate with government planners from the outset.

Responding to a question on whether or not national machineries should be decentralized, she said that in Jamaica, there was a need to do so. Local government reform, for example, must be integrated into national plans to ensure women's control and autonomy. The assumption of community was risky as a model, because in fact what occurred in many inner cities was a "no sharing, no caring, no sense of themselves as a people".

She said that although a national machinery was a "policy shop", the question about whether its role was merely to advise and lobby, or implement did not apply to small Member States. If women in power did not know how people lived and did not "get out there" and see which pilot projects worked and which did not, how could they advise their governments? Sitting in some university and taking some course was not the sole qualification. In small Member States, the national machinery staffs had to make sure they understood how people lived. The third world and small country populations could not afford to make any more mistakes.

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