Economic and Social Council Adopts Nine Draft Texts Tackling Advancement of Women, Social Development, Non-Communicable Diseases
The Economic and Social Council today adopted seven draft resolutions, two by recorded vote, and two draft decisions, as it addressed the advancement of women, social development and non-communicable diseases on the second day of its coordination and management meeting.
The Council adopted, without a vote, a draft resolution entitled “Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system” (document E/2016/L.17). Speaking after its adoption, Aaron Holtz (United Kingdom) said he hoped that the text would ensure the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) received the tools it needed to move forward with gender parity in the Organization ahead of a 2017 deadline.
Turning to a report on the sixtieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (document E/2016/27-E/CN.6/2016/220), held 20 March 2015 and from 14 to 24 March 2015, the Council adopted, by a recorded vote of 27 in favour to 2 against (Australia, United States), with 19 abstentions, a draft resolution titled “Situation of and assistance to Palestinian women”.
Speaking after the vote, Nadya Rasheed (State of Palestine) thanked delegations which voted in favour of the resolution, saying that it sent a strong message of solidarity to the Palestinian people, whose rights were being violated by Israel, the occupying Power.
The Council also adopted, without a vote, draft decisions taking note of the Commission’s report and approving both the provisional agenda for its sixty-first session and its multi-year programme of work.
Adopted, without a vote, was a draft resolution entitled “United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases” (document E/2016/L.16). Introducing that draft, Sergey Kononuchenko (Russian Federation) said the text recognized the importance of price and tax measures on tobacco products. It also included an appeal for vaccines and medicines to be made available and recommended that the Task Force continue to help Member States develop ways to prevent non-communicable diseases as part of their national development plans.
Taking action on recommendations in the report of the Commission for Social Development on its fifty-fourth session (document E/2016/26), the Council adopted, without a vote, draft resolutions on the Commission’s future organization and methods of work and on rethinking and strengthening social development in the contemporary world.
By a vote of 26 in favour, with 16 against and no abstentions, the Council also adopted a draft resolution entitled “Social dimensions of the New Partnerships for Africa’s Development”. It went on to adopt, without a vote, a draft decision on the Commission’s report and its provisional agenda for its fifty-fifth session.
During the all-day session, Werner H. Obermeyer, Deputy Executive Director of the New York Office of the World Health Organization (WHO), introduced the report of the Director-General of the WHO on the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases (document E/2016/53).
Noting that non-communicable diseases caused more than 16 million premature deaths a year, he described how tobacco was central to the Task Force’s efforts. While a number of United Nations country teams had set up action groups to drive forward action on non-communicable diseases, progress on national responses was insufficient, he said. There now was a window of opportunity to meet the target of reducing by one third fatalities caused by non-communicable diseases, but without financial support, work in the field would be limited, he said.
The Council also heard from Antonio de Aguiar Patriota (Brazil), Chair, Commission on the Status of Women, who presented the outcome paper of the Commission’s sixtieth session. He said the document sent a strong message on the urgency of a gender responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. It had set out a comprehensive set of recommendations on how Governments and other stakeholders should achieve gender equality by 2030 in several key areas, including ensuring that normative legal frameworks did not discriminate by gender and that women’s leadership in all areas of sustainable development was strengthened.
He explained how the Commission had agreed on a multi-year programme of work. For 2017, the priority would be women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work; in 2018, it would be rural women and girls’ empowerment; and in 2019, the priority would be social protection systems. It had also decided on review themes for the following three years: for 2017, challenges and achievements of the Millennium Development goals for women and girls; for 2018, participation in and access to media and communication technologies for the empowerment of women; and in 2019, women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development.
Introducing the Secretary-General’s report on “Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system” (document E/2016/57), Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director, Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnerships Bureau, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, said that gender mainstreaming was imperative, not only in Goal 5 dedicated to women and girls, but for catalysing and enabling progress on all sustainable development goals. The System-Wide Action Plan had been an innovative model, building accountability across the highest levels of leadership in United Nations organizations and entities and 64 departments and entities now reported under it. Largest gains had been demonstrated in capacity development, policy and planning.
However, she said, the current rate of progress was insufficient and the rate of progress itself had declined each year. “Business as usual” was no longer enough and a significant leapfrogging approach was needed. She also emphasized the importance of gender responsive statistics, and high-quality data disaggregated by gender and other factors, emphasized also by the Commission on the Status of Women. Several priority action areas for gender equality were outlined, including sustained political commitment and leadership at the highest levels; significantly increased financing to close the gender resource gap; enhanced operational coherence capacity and United Nations country team expertise; robust data; and strengthening of United Nations system accountability.
Ion Jinga (Romania), former Chair of the Commission for Social Development, presented a summary of the Commission’s fifty-fourth session, saying that while progress had been made in eradicating poverty, factors such as globalization, technological change and environmental degradation posed challenges. Given the deepening interlinkage between the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development, he emphasized the need for a better understanding of national, regional and international strategies. Going forward, he said the Commission could play a critical role in following up and reviewing the 2030 Agenda.
During a general discussion, Bruno Rios (Mexico), taking the floor in a general discussion, noted some of the changes that his Government was making to its legislation regarding marriage and gender identity. He also called for a new President of the Commission for Social Development to be elected, with due respect for geographic distribution.
Chandra Roy-Henriksen, Officer-in-Charge of the Division for Social Policy and Development at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, introduced the report of the Secretary-General on “Implementation of the objectives of the International Year of the Family and its follow-up processes” (document E/2016/7). She said it drew from recent initiatives by Member States, as well as research findings on how family policies could advance the 2030 Agenda. While progress had been made, women still faced discrimination in family law, she said, emphasizing the need for legal reforms and better law enforcement to counter family violence.
The Council also held a panel discussion, moderated by Ms. Puri, on “leveraging United Nations coordination and accountability to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”.
The Council will meet again on Friday, 3 June, at 10 a.m. to continue its coordination and management session.
Panel Discussion
The Council held a panel discussion on “leveraging United Nations coordination and accountability to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. Moderated by Ms. Puri, it included Juan Sandoval Mendiolea, Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations; Eva Johannson, Gender Adviser, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); and Papa Seck, Research and Data Policy Specialist, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
Ms. PURI, opening the discussion, recalled Goal 5 of the 2030 Agenda, and underscored that “we are standing at an exciting juncture” regarding gender equality and women’s empowerment. Gender mainstreaming was increasingly critical and the United Nations must be more accountable for it.
Mr. MENDIOLEA said that, notwithstanding Goal 5, including the gender perspective in public policies should be a priority. “We are talking about half of the population so clearly it has to be a priority,” he said. He emphasized the importance of national statistics with a gender perspective. It was regrettable, however, that during negotiations in the General Assembly on a 2030 Agenda resolution, follow-up over three years had been fragmented. That was a very serious error. He went on to highlight the world knowledge platform for violence against women and the challenge faced by UN-Women in raising awareness of vulnerable groups.
Ms. JOHANNSON said the UNFPA had integrated the United Nations System-Wide Action Plan into its own strategic programming. The Fund had also developed a “gender marker” that enabled it to find information on gender equality in various countries and regions. To have a real impact, the System-Wide Action Plan had to be integrated into the planning and monitoring frameworks of all agencies, funds and programmes, rather than be a parallel track. It was clear that the Action Plan had propelled all United Nations agencies in the same direction and it had been ground-breaking for United Nations coordination as such, bringing various parts of the United Nations system together and breaking silos between agencies. The Action Plan also served as network for those advancing gender issues, sharing best practices and results, within agencies and across agency boundaries. She concluded by suggesting that the Action Plan could be adapted by national Government platforms and across ministries. Going forward, UNFPA would continue to support the Action Plan.
Mr. SECK then said that robust, integrated evidence-based practice was needed to adequately implement the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and to promote accountability. If gender-responsive policies were the destination, he said, “data and statistics are the GPS [global positioning system] device that gets us there”. Regarding the fifth Goal on women and girls, 14 transformative indicators had been developed to monitor it, but only three of those could be adequately monitored. For some of the remaining indicators, there was insufficient data to monitor them, and for some, the knowledge on measuring them was lacking. He also spoke of a “weak policy space” that limited the production of gender statistics. Significant technical challenges limited that production, particularly in sensitive areas such as violence against women. Because of limited accessibility and use of the data generated, even data being currently collected was not properly used to inform policies. An underlying challenge was the limited and fragmented funding for gender statistics, and it was important to prioritize gender statistics and work together to reduce fragmentation and avoid duplication of efforts.
In response, Ms. PURI agreed that the issue of funding and prioritization was key. Relatedly, UN-Women was excited about participating in the Gates Foundation initiative committed to investing $80 million to closing the gender gap. That would represent a “huge boost” for gender statistics.
Ms. JOHANNSON added that gender mainstreaming and equality required sustained resources, commitment and collaboration across and within entities. The 2030 Agenda provided opportunities to systematically integrate gender equality into the country level. She called for taking that opportunity to link work through the Action Plan at the corporate level and take it to the wider sustainable level. Countries also needed to be supported in capacity challenges, monitoring and tracking their progress and their capacity to develop and implement policies to drive change. A closer alignment between processes, results and the 2030 Agenda was critical.
Mr. MENDIOLEA emphasized the importance of the “constant fight against the silo approach”, which led to duplication of efforts between agencies. Dialogue and communication between Member States was essential. The Commission on the Status of Women had featured an exercise of dialogue between chairpersons a few sessions ago, which had been useful.
Mr. SECK, reiterating the challenges outlined earlier, underscored the reality of weak policy space and lack of political will regarding gender statistics. As well, technical challenges were significant not only in resources, but also in terms of experts to support the work. Lastly, data usage was critical, since investing in adequate data systems without using them to inform policies would be “for nothing”. A particular challenge for the United Nations system was reducing fragmentation. A relative abundance of gender statistics could be found in some areas and complete lack in others, which created an imbalance between areas. He called for achieving the right balance going forward.
When the floor opened for questions and interventions, the representative of the United Kingdom praised the Commission as one of the most important negotiating bodies in the United Nations system. However, the 2030 Agenda would not be achieved without Goal 5. Regarding the Action Plan, he said progress, while impressive, had not been good enough and that more women needed to be in decision-making positions. He asked the panel how the Action Plan might be different during the 2018-2022 period.
Responding, Ms. PURI said the Action Plan’s first phase was focused on measuring performance. The next phase would be about measuring results and impact, as well as alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals. By way of example, she said the WHO would have to align its Action Plan compact with Goal 5 and link to the health-related Goals.
APARNA MEHROTRA, Officer-in-Charge, Coordination Division and Focal Point for Women of the United Nations System, UN-Women, said that “SWAP 2.0” would strengthen elements of the Action Plan and incorporate indicators that were broad enough to encompass all mandates. Goal 5 had the good fortune of being applicable to all entities, she said. With regard to parity, she said it was hostage to attrition and retirement. She explained how UN-Women was trying to have the United Nations do a better job of dealing with the retirement issue by insisting on real-time data.
Mr. PATRIOTA, Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, described a meeting last week of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Mexico City, recalling that it had reminded him of discussions during the Economic and Social Council’s integration segment on inequality and the connection between Goals 5 and 10.