Statement by Johan Schölvinck
Director
Division for Social Policy and Development
In
May 1996 the CsocD held a special session, or more than a year before ECOSOC
adopted its Agreed Conclusions on Gender Mainstreaming, at which the CsocD
adopted a draft resolution, subsequently adopted by ECOSOC, in which it decided
on a multi-year programme of work, bearing in mind that the Commission should
apply a gender perspective when discussing the different topics under the
multi-year programme of work.
Without
being too smug about it, it should nonetheless be pointed out that the CsocD
was a step ahead of the landmark ECOSOC Agreed Conclusions 1997/2.
The
fact that gender plays an important role in the work of the Division for Social
Policy and Development is in no small measure because the Division’s social
development objectives and its focus on social integration and poverty
eradication require attention to gender inequality and the situation of women.
It
is interesting to note that in the Booklet “Gender Mainstreaming: An Overview”, published by Ms. Angela King’s
office, economists, demographers and statisticians are specifically singled out
to take a gender perspective into account in their work, but that those dealing
with social policy and development are not.
Does that make us in the Division for Social Policy and Development
exempt or are we seen as the natural allies in the pursuit of gender
mainstreaming? I believe the answers
are “No” and “Yes”.
Starting with the “Yes”, i.e. being a natural
ally, is borne from the fact that concern for gender equality is still too much
seen as an “add-on”. Similarly, concern
for social policy is often also treated as an after-thought, something to be
considered once macro-economic stability is achieved.
Overcoming
this situation was very much the topic of the last session of the CsocD namely
“Integration of social and economic policy”.
Just the title alone shows how this integration still leaves much to be
desired. Reconciling short-term
macro-economic exigencies with largely long-term social development objectives
remains a challenge with the latter often getting short shrift compared to the
former.
As
much as gender perspectives should be included in the policy issue to be
addressed, so too should the social dimension.
Here, both have much in common and should thus be natural allies in
achieving this inclusion or integration from the start rather than at the end
of policy formulation.
The
topic “Integration of social and economic policy” lent itself especially well
for including a gender perspective and the Report of the Secretary-General
bears this out. I believe a couple
quotes from the report are worth repeating:
“Macroeconomic
policies have traditionally disregarded the gender perspectives. Gender is a category of social and economic
differentiation that affects the distribution of work, income, wealth,
productivity of inputs and economic behaviours as agents. A gender perspective is also necessary to
reproduce and maintain the labour force in a society. The link between a market economy (monetized) and reproductive
work (non-monetized) was traditionally neglected by economics and the
functioning of reproductive work was taken for granted regardless of the way in
which its relationship to the market economy was defined. Clearly this approach has to change and the
relationship between the market and reproductive work has to be properly
defined.”
My
second quote goes back to being allies:
“There
is a need to promote gender analysis, primarily because gender concerns are fundamental
in defining social concerns, but also because the experience of mainstreaming
gender in development policies may provide an example of ways to mainstream
social concerns.”
There
are other instances in the report that deal with gender mainstreaming but I
believe these two quotes are the most salient in terms of showing good practice
of making a gender perspective an integral part of the analysis undertaken in
the Report of the Secretary-General.
The
extent to which the content of the Report of the Secretary-General found its
way in the Agreed Conclusions of the CsocD will be addressed by Ambassador
Chowdhury, Chairman of the Commission.
But let it suffice to say that these Agreed Conclusions identified
gender equality as one of the essential elements for the realization of social
and people-centred sustainable development.
But
let me return to my question, especially its first part: Is the Division for Social Policy and
Development exempt from being admonished to take a gender perspective into
account in its work? My answer was “No”
but from what I just related to you, it would seem that the answer could or
should be “Yes”.
However,
“one swallow does not make a summer” but there are few other “swallows” in the
work of the Division that strengthen the case for summer. Thus, the report prepared for the CsocD in
2001 on “social protection” points out the way in which gender roles and biases
result in differences in the economic position of women and men and differences
in needs. In 1999 a discussion paper on
“Unpaid Work and Policy-Making” explored the gender dimension.
Notwithstanding
these examples of good practices, challenges remain. Thus, there is a tendency to consider women as a social group
rather than gender as a cross-cutting issue.
Also, there is a tendency toward targeting women, and relative neglect
of gender at the level of policy directions and choices. Although there is in the Division a general
awareness of the relevance of gender to social analysis, the approach still
leans toward targeting women or identifying special measures for women rather
than considering gender as an element or a variable in problem analyses and the
assessment of policy options. In short,
and as is stated in Booklet on Gender Mainstreaming: “There is a need to move away from “women” as a target group, to
gender equality as a development goal.”
An
example of this targeting can be found in the Report of the Special Rapporteur
on Disability to the Commission this year.
Perhaps the nature of the topic makes it difficult to avoid targeting
but the following quote exemplifies what I mean:
“In
gender-sensitive development programmes, women and girls with disabilities
should be identified as target beneficiaries.”
In
sum, our Division is not exempt from admonishment by our colleagues in DAW.
Next
year the CsocD will, in accordance with its multi-year programme of work, take
up the topic of “National and international cooperation for social
development”. This highly general and,
to some extent, opaque subject has a number of subthemes such as (1) sharing of
experiences and practices in social development’ (2) forging partnerships
for social development; (3) social responsibility of the private
sector; (4) impact of employment strategies on social development, and
(5) policies and role of IFIs and their
effect on national social development strategies. Needless to say this is a highly charged agenda but each subtheme
lends itself to include a gender perspective in its analysis. All I can say at this stage, is that we in
the Division will try to bring this about.
Now
what can ECOSOC do? In a sense the
Council has at its disposal Agreed Conclusions 1997/2 in which there is a
section dealing with “The intergovernmental process of the United
Nations.” There are a lot of potential
teeth in these Agreed Conclusions but it would seem that little has ever been
done to give them bite. For example,
ECOSOC entrusted its Bureau with establishing or strengthening a dialogue with
the chairpersons and bureaux of its subsidiary bodies, as well as a dialogue
between them, with the active support of the chairperson and bureau of the
CSW. I don’t think this ever
happened.
Another
example: ECOSOC calls upon its
functional commissions to adopt, as a first step, an explicit decision on
mainstreaming a gender perspective in their work. I don’t know about the other commissions, but as noted at the
outset, the CsocD did so one year before these agreed conclusions.
Then
there are two requests by the Council to the functional commissions: one is to make maximum use of the agreed
conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women and the other is to take
into account the work of the Commission on the Status of Women and the
Commission on Human Rights in the area of enjoyment of human rights by
women.
Leaving
aside the fact that the CsocD meets before the CSW and CHR and therefore would
be hard pressed to take their outcomes into account, the CsocD has a multi-year
work programme, approved by ECOSOC, that leaves little time to seriously
consider the requests made by ECOSOC.
Furthermore,
the Agreed Conclusions urge the CSW to provide suggestions to other functional
commissions and the Council on Gender Mainstreaming. As far as suggestions to other functional commissions are
concerned, I have seen no evidence. As
far as the Council is concerned, the Agreed Conclusions and more recently
ECOSOC resolution 2001/41 do give such evidence but they in fact leave it to
the Council to achieve gender mainstreaming among its subsidiary bodies, a task
it thus far has been unable to carry out.
Perhaps
the most useful paragraph in the Agreed Conclusions is the request to the
Secretariat to present issues and approaches in a gender-sensitive manner when
preparing reports to intergovernmental bodies.
My account of the work of the Division for Social Policy and Development
in this regard is relevant.
Finally
the Agreed Conclusions state that “under an item entitled ‘Integrated follow-up
of major UN conferences, the Council will monitor annually the way in
which its functional commissions and subsidiary bodies mainstream a gender
perspective.” To the best of my
knowledge this has never happened.
And this leads me to the Council’s first consideration of its new subitem 7(e) entitled “Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes of the UN system.” Clearly, this subitem is born from the dissatisfaction with the Agreed Conclusions 1997/2 especially with regard to the annual monitoring of the Council. What to expect from this new subitem 7(e)? It is part of item 7 that deals with “Coordination, programme and other questions” and is taken up during the Council’s general segment. This segment, for years, has suffered from overload, disparate items and severe time constraints. Whether item 7(e) can provide a “watch-dog” function remains to be seen. If it is to vet the reports of the Council’s subsidiary bodies on the extent to which they have taken gender-mainstreaming into account, it is doubtful whether it has either the time or the expertise to do so. If it is to rely on a report provided by DAW, as seems to be the case, then the question arises why DAW cannot directly deal with the Secretariats of the subsidiary bodies concerned.
As
matters stand now, I’m afraid that item 7(e) will get lost in the forest and
its operational usefulness will be marginal at best. Sensitizing the Secretariats serving the subsidiary bodies would
be a more promising road.