The opening session of the General Assembly was briefly witnessed and was chaired by H.E M.S Marjon V. Karmara of Liberia. NGO participants observed the main UN schedule with the government delegates from the member countries during the ‘open’ meetings.

Parallel events, side events and external events went along side by side in the church center, Salvation Army and in some external venues. Caucuses, conversation circles, lunch meetings between the members of various organizations coming from various countries were conducted to contemplate and to discuss. Each day started with an NGO briefly at 8:45 am.

International Federation of University Women held a briefing for its own participants on 28th Feb at the Bechman Tower and daily meetings at 8am in the United Nations Plaza Hotel under the able guidance of Shirley Randell and Catherine Moore. The secondary Pass to attend the sessions at the North Lawn building of the UN was shared by all of us and was systematically passed around. I attended many of the workshops and sessions (including the ones conducted by the Canadian federation, Virgina Gildersleeve, IAW) and also the main UN sessions at the fourth conference Hall of the said building. Some of these workshops are: Violence against Women – Nigeria and Africa. Intercultural dialogues, rural women and girls – education and empowerments for life. Political empowerment, sharing problems – exploring solutions, Girl Rights are Human rights. Women – the Girl child and HIV/AIDS, Investing in Women and Girls, Women Power and Leadership, Inter Faith Dialogues, Rural Women of the America’s, Rural Women Speak out, bringing it home – Youth delegates share the impact of CSW. Youth approaches to Funding Gender Equality and Women’s Human Rights. Rural Women and girls – issues in reproductive Health, Non-state Actor Torture, Mentoring etc. Helped AIWC in conducting a workshop on empowering Rural Women in South Asia a NGO experience.

On 8th March International Women’s day was celebrated by the participants from NGO’s wearing sashes (with personalized messages stating a Cause) and marching with much fanfare, drum beatings, revelry and photography. My sash mentioned my country and carried a message both in Hindi and English- “Violence against Women must stop” “Save the planet Earth” “Women rights are human rights”.

The closing of the UN session was on 9th march but the adoption of the resolutions could not take place and was put off for a week. Attending the CSW brought us “Women” on a common platform to share our concerns and issues. Worldwide women worried about their children, maternal health, poverty, early pregnancy and abortions, psychological health, environmental or economic issues – similar problems and common goals united us in a sisterhood, wishing and working towards a peaceful world with no famines, wars or nuclear holocausts. Attending CSW in New York was an informative, interactive and a major networking global experience for me.

Shevata Rai Talwar
IFUW Delegate, India

Theme of this session was a man should get involved in caregiving at home. Reasons are many. Panelists discussed how good it is for men to involve in caregiving. Mr. Barker, International Director Promundo in Brazil said if men do caregiving, they feel better about themselves, their partners, and children. This helps a man stays in a good shape mentally and a number of domestic violence decrease. Ms. Ulkuer, Chief, Early Childhood Development Unit, Programme Division, UNICEF added that girls are more successful if their fathers are in their lives.

Mr. Mtibe, One Man Can Campaign Mobiliser, Sonke Gender Justice introduced his activity in South Africa. His organization launched a fatherhood campaign with Promundo and MenEngage Alliance. This campaign is conceived as a complement to global and local efforts to engage men and boys in ending violence against women and girls. The campaign is to change the important things a father can do from just being strong or violent to being caring and supportive. During panel discussion, the panelists also mentioned the importance of father’s family involvement especially during early childhood and of making a family policy, which leads social changes.

From this session, I considered that men’s actions like these panelists are essential to carry on gender equality. IFUW is only-women organization; therefore this session is not directly useful for our activities. However, we need to think about how we change human’s minds that believe in caregiving is women’s job, not men’s. Without having gender equality at home, we will not fulfill a peaceful world.

Izumi Yamashita
IFUW member

A packed room showed that nearly 1/3 of those in attendance had grandparents who farmed, approximately 10% had parents who farmed and only 4 in the audience were current farmers.

Panelists included Florine Swanson, President of Women Graduates-USA and a farmer in Iowa, USA. Robynne Anderson, UN Rep. for the World Farmers Organization and the daughter of a member of the Canadian Association of University Women. Robynne grew up on a grain farm in Canada. Other speakers included Rochelle Roca-Hachem, Program Specialist for Culture of UNESCO; Starry Kruegar, Executive Director for Rural Development Leadership Network; Lucero Fuentes, Education of Rural Women and Girls in Mexico and Robert Carlson, President, World Farmers Organization based in Rome, Italy. Robert is from North Dakota, USA, and his wife grew up on a dairy farm.

UNESCO works in rural communities on maintaining the cultural diversity by holding festivals and craft fairs as a means of retraining the vitality of the towns. Rochelle talked about the need to provide primary education, literacy, teacher training, use of the radio for communication, and economic development in rural areas.

Starry spoke about the work of the Rural Development Leadership Network in working with people of poverty in the United States. Their efforts have helped women get college degrees. Participants do field projects, have peer exchanges, develop leadership and writing skills. “They validate people where they are now.”

Lucero Fuentes talked about how few women can participate in education without economic assistance. Many of the men go to the USA to work and many of the rural women are going into the cities and towns. Social workers provide training in retail work, computers, food production, and sewing.

The World Farmers Organization is working with women in agriculture in developing countries to teach them marketing, accounting and production skills. When the women succeed, their husband’s become interested in learning too. WFO will also be a presence in Rio+20 in June.

Florine Swanson
President, Women Graduates-USA

Professor Thanh-Huyen Ballmer-Cao,
UN Photo by Jean-Marc Ferré

A panel on “Communicating to Women on Global Issues” convened on the occasion of International Women’s Day at the Palais des Nations on March 6 ¹. The panel was an opportunity to examine how women’s magazines and other media with a high female audience communicate on major issues of our time.  The goal was to discuss the role of mass media in successfully shaping culture and society toward a more equitable future.

The main suggestions from the panel were:

1. Mobilize women and connect them to global issues by:
• Showing them the impact of gender differences.
• Empowering women by making them aware of the actions they can take.
• Involving women without victimizing or stigmatizing them.
2. Empower women to effectively use social networking sites. Today 2.5 billion people use the Internet and 1 billion people use Facebook.  Women are 8 times more likely to use social networks because they have freedom of expression.
3. Use the media to educate women voters, because that is the first step towards moving women into leadership positions.
4. Focus on topical, specific, attractive issues related to women’s rights and get them involved in the debate. The broad subject of women’s rights is not often in the media, because the media focuses on sudden events rather than long-term problems.
5. Make women’s rights less of a theoretical topic. Give your audience someone specific to relate too. Utilizing charismatic icons that are great models and embody The Empowered Women.
6. Model your message to target the heart of your audience. Women speak from the heart and if you have to choose between the heart and the mind, the heart is much stronger.
7. Utilize International Women’s Day as a spark to start the discussion.

Leah Constance Nodvin
IFUW Intern

I recall CSW NGO Consultation briefing on up coming “innovation” at the UN and musing how difficult it was to get connected at the CSW. This was indeed it “Conversation Circles!” The purpose was to connect people and engage them in meaningful conversation. Innovation had indeed come to the UN!

Staying connected: exchange of ideas

The UN during CSW can be a very intimidating experience. Hundreds of women weave their way through the buildings trying desperately to get to the official sessions, high Level panels and workshops. Scrambling and scrounging for passes and entry tickets. Sometimes, reminiscent of high school experiences, complete with hall monitors (security) keeping a watchful eye, else some of us slip into an official session without tickets. Some of us did then, as we do now. Not to mention congregating in hallways and lifts and cafes and hotels to plan lobbying of governments, form coalitions and hastily discuss and pencil amendments to the draft conclusions and prepare oral statements. Being a lone mendicant to CSW process of hurried determined women can be pretty overwhelming.

What is a conversation circle?

The conversation circles were indeed a true media for facilitating “conversation” between groups around mutual interests, for networking and for current and future collaborations. These are not to be confused with lobbying caucuses that are regionally based. Conversational circles are free and open to all delegates attending the CSW. The themes this year were Human Rights, Peace and security/violence against women, Health, Aging, Migration, Communications Social Media and Arts, Family, Trafficking women and children, Intergenerational dialogue, Sustainable development and Climate Change. In short there was something for every one.

The idea is that we pick a thematic circle of our choice and join it. The process is to exchange and discuss our views. The circle follows the usual guidelines on mutual respect for culture and creed and views, communication is by turn and with due consideration. It was difficult to pick one group since there several that drew my interest. I joined the one on leadership and was at first a little perturbed when I had to change gear from being a passionate advocate of women’s issues, ready to fire both carburetors. Here the CSW transformed into personal interaction.

Thematic discussion: Leadership

Leadership has been foremost in the voracious discussions prior and the aftermath of the formation of UN Women, particularly around the expectancy of how leadership should be appointed and function. With this in mind I joined the leadership group. We discussed leadership and the qualities of good leadership and suggested characteristics critical to leadership. Some interesting perspectives emerged, reflecting our myriad of cultures and nations. Each of us were accustomed to different leadership models based on our differences. Yet we had came together in commonality to work in collaboration for the same goal of the “Rural Women “of the world, this years CSW theme.

Personally, a good leader is one who is able to listen to voices from all quarters of the community including dissenting viewpoints. Listening to ideas, thoughts and feelings strengthens the group the organization and ensures better informed decisions. Then we moved on to discuss the value of these conversational circles. Plans were made to continue discussions on line and our facilitator was to oversee this.

Take Aways

What I learned as I spoke and listened to all the group members is to be cognizant of who is listening. Surely we are all aware of this, but are we truly aware of the lasting impressions that we make particularly in United Nations settings. This was brought home to me by the voice of an impressionable high school student who was part of the group and was soaking all our exchanges.

Conversation Circles are indeed a welcome addition to The CSW. It is expected to continue our conversation on line and in this way better participate in the process of the building the next CSW in 2013 when the theme is “Violence against Women.

We came together with shared goals and we expect to promulgate our goals in our home communities, conversation circles could prove to offer excellent means foe exchange of ideas and networking. And not least we are informed that networking may be possible with the other circles that were concurrently in place. To use western north terminology we can have our cake and eat it.

Shaila Rao Mistry
IFUW Member

UN Women created in 2011 and has now had its first birthday at this 56th CSW in New York. Now that the dust has settled and the initial euphoria has worn off, we have many questions to ask.

• What has UN Women achieved in its first year and where are we now?
• What progress has been made with infrastructure/mobilization of goals?
• Have our voices for “call for action” been met?
• In short, has the construction of a new future begun?

Are we on our way to fulfilling some of our initial expectations. To use modern technology allegory of the Y generation, UN Women was expected to be the “giant transformer” to the women’s movement.

Where we began: Timeline and Goals

Begun in 2006 the Gender Architecture Reform gathered steam at the 50 CSW when there was a growing recognition that women need to be in high decision making places. Commensurate with this was the need for a women’s entity at that UN level with full authority and privileges on all matters pertaining to women’s issues. NGO’s across the globe worked tirelessly to formulate and advance this campaign and in subsequent years have paved the way to culminate in the soon to be formed “Entity”. While UNIFEM, IN STRAW. OSAGI and DAW, the existing three division and were addressing needs of women It was felt that a single entity would be better able to address and lead innovation in committed solution to women’s issues.

The goals of the Gear Campaign prior to its formation were every clear with some strong absolutes. We wanted UN Women to be

1. Created as a priority within a timely framework, without delay.
2. Have a strong head, selected through accessible and transparent global search. And that it be a woman.
3. Have integral Civil Society participation providing expertise at both governance and advisory body level, regionally and nationally and globally.
4. Effective and operational and with teeth which translate into real authority, sanctions and privileges. It should be the driver for women’s empowerment and gender equality with strong country level operational capacity and hold the system accountable for gender mainstreaming as well as able to engage in its own programmatic work and to support governmental and NGO work.
5. Well funded with $500 million to $ 1 billion US dollars

One year later do we see any progress past the initial creation and appointment of the UN General Secretary? Listening to the leadership speak of the work that has been done in the last year we cannot but echo aloud our impatience to expedite due process.

Funding is indeed the key driver to strengthen the entity and to programming and advocacy. Given the economic status of global economies it is not surprising that we have not reached our full funding. None the less many programs have been launched globally.

Next, infrastructure is key to the effective functioning of the UN Women and to providing programs on the ground. To this end the formal organizational structure is in place thus far. Two main bureaus have been set up including one to handle Policy and Programs and another to handle intergovernmental support and Strategic Partnerships. Under these two main divisions we have the gradual fleshing out of subdivisions which will then handle the work of this body.

Next Step: Immediate Plans

Moving forward UN Women declares the following road map.

1. Designation of dedicated UN staff / units to liaise with civil society both local/globally.
2. The creation of civil society advisory councils at country, regional and global levels.
3. The establishment of Thematic work groups to ensure CSO expert voices are heard.
4. The appointment of independent thematic experts from civil society to act as advisors to examining specific issues.
5. Dynamic public forums for women to exchange ideas with NGOs around the world
6. Full participation on executive board governing women.

In summary

It is taking a little longer than anticipated, which should not be a surprise. Meanwhile, it is assuring to see a clear road map that has been chalked out for the immediate future, one which includes strong Civil Society participation.

As an Entrepreneur, I could not help reflecting on the slow pace of progress and thinking that if this were a private sector entity it would already have gone out of business. Indeed, I pointed out as much to the Chair of the GEAR campaign much to her amusement. Yet with my civil society hat on, I am painfully aware of the lengthy processes that need to take place to ensure fair and transparent creation of posts and hiring and appointments. Formulation of policy and practice which then has to stand the test of equality empowerment and equanimity can be no small challenge. Having chaired several international caucuses I am well aware as are all of you, reaching consensus amongst so many cultures, nations and communities and individuals is no mean task.

Shaila Rao Mistry
IFUW Member

GEAR – Gender Equality Architecture Reform
OSAGI – Office of Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women
DAW – Division for the Advancement of Women
UNIFEM – United Nations Development Fund for Women
INSTRAW – International Research and Training Institute for Advancement of Women

Elahe shared the positives and negatives of technology, particularly of cell phones. Just in India and China alone over 300 million cell phones were added in 2010. There are over 6 billion cell phones world wide of which less than 30% are smart phones. In 2011 87% of the developed world had cell phones and 78% of the developing world.

Some of the positives include being available for use in medical efforts ranging from malaria control in developing countries to Johnson & Johnson corporation providing apps for mothers expecting babies or after they are born. Cells phones have been used in shelters in California for women who are in threatening relationships. In developing countries it has opened the access to information about marketing of crops, to know what is needed and when.

Key restraints include lack of technology and language literacy, norms that discourage women and girls from using technology and lack of control over ownership of technology. In Nigeria the government is providing incentives to get phone systems into rural areas. While in parts of India there are villages than ban cell phones for unwed women and boys can use only under parental supervision.

Some of the negatives include access to be able to follow where we are and what we are doing. In Iran, the government shut off the ability to text on phones during the election. Phones have also become a source of bulling of young people and harassment of women by men with whom they have had a prior relationship.

Florine Swanson
President, Women Graduates-USA

Geeta Desai
IFUW Member

SWOT Analysis

With the stakeholder analysis in mind, we spent the rest of the day hammering out a SWOT analysis of IFUW. SWOT stands for Strengths and Weaknesses (internal elements) and Opportunities and Threats (external factors).

To best understand the external factors, our fantastic facilitator, Jane, used the world PESTLES, to start us off analyzing what was going on outside IFUW. We had to look at the main trends in the following areas:

P – Political
E – Economical
S – Social
T – Technological
L – Legal
E – Environments
S – Sector

There was a lot of input in all these areas but the main outcomes were:

Mortar and Pestle

Political: There are freedom revolutions ongoing. Fundamentalism and right wing is growing bringing less political will to close the poverty and equality gap. We live in a fast changing world where economics is more important than politics. Youth is not so interested in existing political structures and need new ways of engaging. There is also a lack of trust in the political system.

Economical: There is a trend towards more privatization of education bringing a risk of an economically driven curriculum. This could mean reduced standard and equality of education. Economic crisis resulted in more people educated but no guarantee for jobs/careers. The gap between rich and poor is widening. Women are less likely to be invested in when money is short.

Social: Violence against women is growing. Smart girls are less fashionable and girls are more into the modeling careers and making quick money rather than into schools (there is a lack of good role models). Schools do not help teenage pregnant girls to complete their educational ladder. Trafficking of schoolgirls is also a problem. The economical crisis brought a shift in choices of studies from humanities to vocational oriented subjects. Social trends differ, of course, from country to country regarding women’s age, status, class etc.

Technological: Technology has brought a lot of positive changes such as Wi-fi, E-books, remote and distance learning. But the digital divide has grown in certain countries too because of limited access to technology. The use of technology reduces genuine communication and social interaction.

Legal: More women are educated in law but only a few are in partnerships and are more likely to be assigned minor jobs. More women are appointed as judges, have access to supreme court, but reality is that only few of them are members of courts of appeal and the glass ceiling is very present. There is a scarcity of “free” legal services and it is difficult to access the law especially for poor women. There is legislation on violence against women but there is a problem with implementation. Privacy law needs to be balanced – to protect the rights of individuals but also for those who are unable to realise their rights. Traditional/customary law can affect women negatively.

Environments: Climate change affects everything, education included. Desertification, lack of water, lack of land, flooding could force students to relocate. The earth is running out of resources and the right of water is questioned with privatization of water. We need alternative ways to solve the climate change problems… women are innovative!

Sector: In the Human Rights sector the negative trends for women is the impact of Arab springs e.g. there is a risk of formation of new establishment that will cut off women (women will not have a role), could impact on birth control and family planning programmes. In education the impact of increased fees of higher education in many cases could affect girls less than boys. On the positive side, the creation of UN Women and the increased use of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) could help promote the rights of women.

Nina Joyce & Réka Fogarasi

]]> http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/2012/03/08/pestles/feed/ 5 http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/2012/03/08/stakeholder-a-loignon/ http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/2012/03/08/stakeholder-a-loignon/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:25:13 +0000 Anamaria Vere, IFUW Staff http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/?p=1334 Continue reading →]]>

Stakeholder onion

Next on the menu was to cook a “Stakeholder à l’oiginon”. Stakeholders are people who have an interest in IFUW with the Primary stakeholders at the core of the organization. We all agreed that these are the IFUW board and staff, members, and potential members (=woman graduates).

The next layer of the Stakeholder Onion is partnerships, i.e. the people IFUW work with. Examples included UN bodies (UNESCO, UNHCR), funding agencies and business, other organizations with shared vision, higher education institutions and research institutes.

Finally, the secondary stakeholders are the people IFUW would like to influence. These were considered to be the law, men & boys, employers & unions, UN bodies, governments and business.

Nina Joyce