Gender Caucus Statement

delivered by Emmie Chanika

Thursday, May 17, 2001

Will this plan of action lead to a lost decade for the world's poorest women?

Thank you for this opportunity to address you. The Gender Caucus of NGOs at this conference would like to say that it has been disappointed at the way that gender issues, particularly those affecting women, have been discussed in the draft Programme of action currently being negotiated.

We are very concerned that only some of the very few paragraphs that discuss gender and women have arrived within the text being negotiated at this Conference. We are particularly concerned about the significant loss of comprehensive text within paragraph nine, which has been adopted. This paragraph recognizes the connections between development, poverty eradication and gender equality.

We were gravely concerned that paragraph five, which mentions gender as a cross-cutting issue, was in brackets. Similarly we were very concerned that paragraph six, which includes gender issues as an area to be incorporated into poverty eradication approaches was still in brackets.

We are very pleased that these paragraphs have now been adopted and we hope that this action will continue on the remaining paragraphs within the text.

Commitment 3: Building human and institutional capacities

Section B: Population

Paragraphs 33 (a) and 33 (b) which refer to reproductive health and access to contraception are still in brackets, these are subjects for which considerable international agreement already exists within the ICPD Programme of Action. They are of fundamental importance for women and cannot be achieved unless women within Least Developed Countries are the focus of and participants in the implementation of these actions.

Section D: Health, nutrition and sanitation

Paragraphs 37 (g) and 37 (h) remain in brackets and this is a disgrace. They refer to increasing maternal and prenatal care, and malnutrition amongst pregnant women and pre-school children respectively. The achievements of these are essential for population health within each LDC.

Yet even despite the bracketed presence of these two paragraphs, and an agreed goal to reduce maternal mortality, there are no concrete actions by LDCs and development partners, to implement these goals and targets, only a very vague "bearing in mind the gender aspect" qualification added to the first action.

This is the commitment to health, sanitation and nutrition when, in my country Malawi, women with a child on her back going to the toilet are buried alive in pit latrines when the earth is sodden during the rain.

Commitment 4: Productive capacities

G: Rural development and food security

62i(k) We are very pleased that this paragraph has been adopted with strengthened language from the Beijing platform of action and would like to congratulate negotiators on this success.

Status of Women in LDCs

· 83% of the agricultural workforce are women

· only 9% of women are legislators

· only 9% of women are decision-makers in all ministries

· only 26% of women in LDCs who give birth are attended by trained personnel

· the data on maternal mortality is so poor it is not possible to provide an average estimate for LDCs, the highest is 1700 per 100 000 in Afghanistan

Within this document, there is no recognition of the persistent and increasing burden of poverty on women, exacerbated by external debt, lack of access to markets and privatization development strategies. The impact of debt greatly falls on the woman and children. Debt should be unconditionally cancelled and measures implemented to reduce wastage. Within the text, there is not enough mention of inequalities and inadequacies in women's access to economic resources, health care and participation in decision making.

We urge the conference to agree to the text on gender issues currently within brackets.

In the follow-up to this conference we challenge UNCTAD, UN and other multilateral agencies, LDCs and donor countries to

· Integrate Beijing implementation into the implementation of this Programme of action for the LDCs

· Review, adopt and maintain macro economic policies and strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty (Beijing Platform for Action)

· Adopt the recommendations of the Cape Town preparatory meeting on mainstreaming gender into LDC strategies

· Convene an eminent persons committee to assess and develop strategies for the gender mainstreaming in all LDC development strategies by November this year

· Formalize NGO, donor and government partnerships in the development of all strategies for development by 2002

· Strengthen research institutions to reflect the mainstreaming of gender

· Review the implementation of the enhanced HIPC, which is currently inadequate, to ensure women's economic empowerment

· Increase ODA Financing for gender mainstreaming and women’s initiatives

We are disturbed by the notable absence of persons with disabilities at this third LDC conference although they are part of the vulnerable groups in our countries. We are also concerned that their issues are not appearing in this Programmed of Action.