23rd SPECIAL SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
"WOMEN 2:000: GENDER EQUALITY, DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE
FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
5-9 JUNE 2000
STATEMENT BY
MARK MALLOCH BROWN
ADMINISTRATOR
UNDP
UN, New York
9 JUNE 2000
STATEMENT BY MARK MALLOCH BROWN
UNDP ADMINISTRATOR
TO THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPECIAL SESSION ON
BEIJING+5
JUNE 9, 2000
The most striking single social, political and economic transformation of the past century has been the emergence of women as leaders in nearly every country and in every walk of life. From the thousands of women in India who entered local government thanks to the Panchayat legislation, to brave and accomplished leaders of social movements like Bella Abzug. As the comprehensive report on the World's Women prepared by UNIFEM clearly shows, while progress has been encouraging in a number of fronts, particularly since Beijing, there is still a long, long way to go. Whether we are talking about women's presence in parliaments, in business, in education or simply the right to vote, own property and be protected from violence and discrimination much, much more still needs to be done to achieve gender equality.
That is why if the Beijing Conference was about commitments, Beijing+5 must be about how we are all meeting those commitments. It must be about demanding accountability from governments, businesses and civil society on achieving goals and targets they have set. It must be about moving gender issues from the margins to the mainstream, from the grassroots reality to policy makers in everything from international organizations to national budgets to local governance.
As an organization UNDP is committed to helping answer those tough questions by using our universal presence and strong record as trusted partner to help build capacity and strong institutions that help drive human development with gender sensitivity. That means we are striving to move beyond treating gender issues simply as a separate set of concerns. We are mainstreaming gender throughout our policies and internal working practices and across our country offices. There are three broad areas where we are doing so: by playing a strong and powerful advocacy role in raising awareness of issues and policy, helping mainstream sound and sensible policies relating to women, and making smart use of strategic partnerships to help implement them.
To do the first, advocacy, we need suitable tools that can be used to monitor and advocate for the policies and processes that enable women to take full control of their lives and of the decisions that affect them. We need the tools to measure progress and accountability. That is why in 1995 UNDP devoted its annual Human Development Report to the issues of the Beijing Conference. In it we introduced a set of key indicators specific to Gender and Development and Gender and Empowerment that; have become widely recognized. Five years later, these have now become the benchmark by which the human impact of development initiatives are measured. By using them and their correlates in National Human Development Reports we can and must play an important campaigning role with our partners in civil society, Government and the media. UNDP views itself today as a campaigning organization committed to stoking the demand for change.
But we are also a policy advisory agency helping governments craft the policies and institutions that drive gender equality and women's empowerment. That means active, smart policy to address property rights, credit, communications and learning needs that women must have addressed if they are to seize their full potential and economic opportunities. And I am particularly interested in helping Governments forge the right response to the Information Technology revolution so that through public/private partnerships they harness its transformative power to the credit, market access and learning needs of poor women.
The new UNDP is about advocacy, policy advice and thirdly partnerships, inside and outside the UN family. Inside, our younger sister, UNIFEM, under the dynamic leadership of Noeleen Heyzer and her team have led the way in demonstrating approaches that link micro level actions with macro level policies in specific areas. And then we at UNDP can use our own macro strengths and country offices to mainstream those experiences and bring them to the attention of governments. For example, when UNIFEM initiated a global campaign on violence against women, UNDP offices across Latin America were able to contribute directly to transformation of legislation across the region. In that way, we were able to leverage UNDP's strengths in advocacy, policy formation and partnerships with broadly positive results. UNDP's field expertise has also grown into a network of gender focal points. And here our work with UNV gender specialists based in UNDP field offices has been another outstanding example of partnership that has attracted a large donor support.
But in the final analysis, success or failure can only be judged by the world's women. By whether we have contributed to providing choices and opportunities for those who have never had them: education for girls who have been denied it, protection from abuse at home and in the workplace for wives and mothers who have long had to endure it silently, and access to real political and economic power for all women in every country.
Our job will not be done until we achieve all the goals of the Beijing Platform for Action.