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	Women's full and effective participation and decision-making in public life by Barbara van Paassen LSE Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity   On the eve of the 65th Commission on the Status of Women meeting at the United Nations, which this year will take place virtually, Barbara van Paassen reflects on COVID-19, what we can learn from civil society organisations working for gender equity, and the urgent need to put women at the global tables where potentially transformative decisions are made:   It was International Women’s Day, 8 March 2018, when I arrived in New York as a member of the Netherlands’ delegation to the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).   We had two days to prepare with women’s groups and civil society organisations ahead of this important annual moment for governments to take stock of their progress on gender equality and agree on action to advance women’s and girls’ rights.   As the first-ever NGO representative to join the Dutch government team, I had a unique opportunity to help make change; to participate in the negotiations and – most importantly – ensure that civil society perspectives would be taken into account.   It was a role I did not take lightly, knowing the longstanding concerns of civil society groups on lack of inclusion, and in solidarity with the thousands of women’s rights advocates who had also travelled to New York.   Three years on, the CSW’s 65th session will look totally different. In this virtual event, there will be no long lines for registration, no long nights in the negotiation room, and no representatives of civil society organisations gathering in the hallways of the United Nations Headquarters in a bid to remind the world’s governments what is at stake.   No early arrivals that allow CSW participants to get to know each other, sharing our experiences from rural Kenya, Manila or The Hague; no chance encounters, unexpected insights, or opportunities to strategise together.   In a time of shrinking civic space, it is striking that this year’s priority theme is “Women's full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”. (It is also striking how CSW always come up with incredibly long titles).   The importance of this theme has been well laid out by the UN’s own expert panel, with the December 2020 Report of the Secretary General emphasising that “Gender equality cannot be achieved unless public life and decision-making includes women and girls in all their diversity.”   Perhaps even more importantly, the widespread failure to achieve this aim means that “policy outcomes are likely to be harmful and ineffective and to lead to the violation of women’s rights”.   This is exactly what was shown in recent work I did for the Women 2030 Global Shadow Report, where I looked at opportunities and structural barriers for achieving gender equality, drawing on the work of feminist and environmental organisations in 34 countries. And in “The gendered impacts of large-scale land investments and women’s responses”, Magdalena Kropiwnicka and I identified key lessons on safeguarding women’s rights in the face of investments to support the work of Trocaire and other CSOs.   Both reports highlight that the exclusion of women from decision-making – whether in large-scale land investments or policy development – goes hand in hand with the material loss of land and livelihoods, higher levels of violence, physical and mental health challenges and women’s further disempowerment.   On the other hand, we found many examples around the world of women leading change that benefits not only themselves, but their societies and the planet.   In the time of COVID-19, where are the women?   Times of crisis offer both opportunities and risks for those who are most marginalised. Many people have expressed hope that the pandemic, although it has taken an incredible toll on lives, liberties and livelihoods, could also be a critical juncture for transformative change. So what has been happening to women’s participation in the past year, and what can it tell us about what can be done at this unique moment in time?   Unfortunately, we have little data to go on but a few trends emerge. The pandemic has made participation in public and decision-making spaces difficult for most people, but for women and other groups that have long been excluded, it has been especially challenging. In the absence of physical meeting spaces, access to technology and internet becomes even more important, and around the world, the digital divide has become even more pronounced – and in very gendered ways.   For example, in India, despite the country’s burgeoning tech industry, many families have only one phone, which is typically controlled by the male head of the household.   While in theory virtual meeting spaces can allow women from rural and remote areas to participate more easily, women’s organisations participating in the Emergent Agency project being undertaken by Oxfam and Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity report that the opposite is often true.   We know that the obstacles that women already faced have only increased during the coronavirus crisis: the burden of unpaid care work, the precarity of paid labour, and the ubiquity of threats and violence at home and elsewhere, including online. We know that girls, women and gender-diverse people of colour, with migrant status or otherwise facing intersecting discriminations, are particularly exposed.   All these factors have affected the ability of women to discuss and organise by coming together, which we know is a crucial prerequisite for meaningful participation.   We have also seen that the majority of government and other official COVID-19 response teams have been male-led and male-dominated, and their policies and actions have frequently overlooked the needs of women.   Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of UN Women, recently called on the world’s governments to stop sidelining women in their pandemic responses. “Of 87 countries that we surveyed, only 3.5 per cent have task forces with 50 per cent women,” she said. “The rest of the countries have task forces in which women are a minority… this is unacceptable.”   Meanwhile, “manels” – all-male “expert” panels – remain ubiquitous in coronatime, and surveys by civil society organisations, such as Care’s recent report “Where Are the Women?”, show that “Local women’s rights and women-led organizations and leaders are not being included in decision making around the humanitarian response, or receiving their fair share of funding.”   In contexts such as these, it is hardly surprising that we are not seeing the gender-sensitive COVID-19 responses that women’s groups and movements have been calling for – let alone truly transformative ones.   At the same time, we know that women around the world are on the pandemic frontlines, supporting their families and communities.   As a recent ActionAid report detailed, organisations that promote women-led localised emergency responses are particularly good at addressing the needs of all those affected, while at the same time strengthening skills and transforming gender relations.   It has also been widely observed that coronavirus responses in many of the countries led by women have highly effective, and more likely to have taken women’s particular needs into account.   If you want to include more women, learn from women how to do so   It’s a no-brainer that debates and decision-making that exclude half of the population – or any part of it, for that matter – are not only unjust, but also result in half-baked solutions.   Indeed, few people would argue the point – and yet, on the eve of CSW65, we are still very far from having enough women at the table. Luckily, we know much of what needs to be done to include all women in informing, shaping – and taking – key decisions, and feminist groups and women’s rights organisations around the world have been showing the way.   For starters, we need better data on gender equality in all spheres of life, and we need women involved in that effort. The fact that we simply don’t know what is currently happening to women’s participation in decision-making is especially concerning.   In both studies I did, we found that lack of gender-differentiated intersectional data and women’s voices in research were major obstacles for achieving gender equality. But we also know that when women are included in design, data gathering and analysis, research can be truly transformational.   The main challenge is making participation and decision-making truly full and meaningful for women in all their diversity. Both studies showed that exclusion from policy processes is particularly pronounced for women from rural areas, indigenous or migrant backgrounds; encouragingingly, however, many civil society organisations and movements have become increasingly successful in including and supporting these groups.   Access to information and safe spaces for women to share their experiences, to do joint (power) analysis and to organise themselves, are really important enablers. This also means that we must be intentional about language, (digital) security, timings of meetings that work for women and their particular roles – e.g. as caregivers or farmers – and other practical barriers women face, as well as ensuring their visibility (hence the need to end manels).   There is a wealth of evidence to show that if we want to make sure women can truly participate meaningfully, engaging men in challenging deep-rooted social stereotypes and adopting quotas are both key.   How to be in the room – when you can’t be in the room   While the insights, lived experience and determination of women’s movements and organisations around the world give cause for hope, it is also true that many groups and individuals are at increasing risk from growing repression, lack of funding and the additional challenges presented by the pandemic.   Without having a physical presence in decision-making spaces, or even just in the corridors and hallways that lead to the tables where decision-makers sit, women’s groups, now more than ever, need support from allies across the globe and opportunities to have meaningful online participation.   Civil society organisations are actively calling for this support. A recent letter from 70+ women’s organisations to the chair of the CSW65 negotiations has emphasised the opportunity it presents to reverse course by developing new best practices to place feminist and gender justice organisations at the centre of the collective work.   For a look at how this could happen, last year’s “open call for strong and inclusive civil society engagement at UN virtual forums” made by 350 organisations has some valuable and timely suggestions. I also hope that many more women and girls will have the opportunity to be part of the actual negotiations, as I saw first-hand what a difference it can make.   As we look to the post-COVID-19 future – for people of all genders, age and colour – the stakes are high. So far, despite our hopes for using the pandemic’s “critical juncture” to achieve more transformative change, it has failed to materialise.   Instead, the very power structures and patriarchy that characterise most of our societies have persisted, if not intensified, over the past year.   CSW65 will be an important opportunity to move beyond rhetoric and finally show the placing of “women at the table” to be the game-changer we know it can be.   We need to start, then with the “full and effective participation of women in all their diversity” within these very negotiations, so that they can share and discuss the solutions and alternatives that have been working for them. It is our very best bet for real and lasting change.   http://afsee.atlanticfellows.org/blog/barbara-van-passen-iwd-2021-csw65 http://afsee.atlanticfellows.org/blog-home http://www.iied.org/2021-barbara-ward-lecture-rebeca-grynspan-says-nothing-ever-so-small-it-cannot-make-difference http://www.iied.org/barbara-ward-lectures Visit the related web page
	Dismantling the obstacles that still block women’s paths by United Nations Population Fund, agencies   For Natalia Kanem, the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund since 2017, the last couple of years have been a wild ride.   In 2020, women the world over were getting ready to celebrate important anniversaries: 25 years since an international conference in Beijing pledged global action on women’s rights, including their reproductive choices; 20 years since the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women’s participation in security, peace and conflict; and a decade since the creation of UN Women.   UNFPA, as the fund is known by its founding initials, was a part of most landmark efforts. Then a pandemic of epic proportions disrupted the celebratory year, leaving anniversary events postponed or virtual.   Out in the real world, the virus was taking a terrible toll.   “Covid-19 has been catastrophic for the health, rights, and safety of women and girls, setting back much of the progress made over the past 25 years,” Kanem said in an interview with Barbara Crossette from PassBlue.   “The pandemic caused many overstretched health systems to scale back sexual and reproductive health services, which are often not deemed essential even though they can be life-saving and are a human right.   “UNFPA estimates that nearly 12 million women globally lost access to family planning services, leading to as many as 1.4 million unintended pregnancies,” Kanem said, drawing on data as of July 2021.   “We also project that there will be 13 million child marriages and 2 million cases of female genital mutilation that could have been averted over the next decade due to disruptions to our programs.”   For years, the Population Fund was described as the world’s most extensive family planning organization. In recent decades that perception has changed, with more emphasis on the rights of women and gender rights and as an agency that places women at the center of development. What are the diverse needs and interests that UNFPA addresses now?   Natalia Kanem: UNFPA at its core is about helping people everywhere in the world reach their potential. Making voluntary family planning universally available is key to that vision, as is stopping child marriage, ending female genital mutilation in our lifetime, and ensuring women and girls can live free from harm.   When UNFPA was founded in 1969, there was a global panic about “overpopulation.” Unfortunately, that gave rise in some places to restrictive policies aimed at population control, including through forced sterilization or coercive family planning.   From the very beginning, UNFPA stood out in understanding that the solution to sustainability lay in upholding the rights of women and couples to decide freely if, when and how many children to have.   And at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, the world resoundingly agreed. The groundbreaking Cairo consensus, adopted by 179 governments, heralded a shift in focus from human numbers to human rights. The focus went from “population”.. to “people.”   It is a vision that guides our work to this day, even as we adapt to meet evolving needs. It underpins our current efforts to achieve “three zeros” by 2030: zero unmet need for family planning, zero preventable maternal deaths, and zero gender-based violence and harmful practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation.   To get to zero, we need to identify and reach those most in need. Quality population data and evidence help us do this, and UNFPA continues to innovate in the area of data collection and analysis through our work with national statistical offices.   It is the lack of bodily autonomy that underlies gender inequality. The reality is that women around the world are denied the fundamental right to make decisions over their bodies and futures.   They are controlled by men, and this must change. Achieving the three zeros has countless positive knock-on effects that contribute to wider human and economic development.   Countries flourish when all women are empowered to make their own informed decisions about their bodies and lives and have access to services to support their choices.   One point you and others often make is that men and boys are an integral part of advancing the lives of women. But recent reports emerging during the Covid pandemic show rising domestic violence and the trafficking of girls.   UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a speech in 2020 that “persistent patriarchy” (which he called “stupid”) was to blame. “Just as slavery and colonialism were a stain on previous centuries, women’s inequality should shame us all in the twenty-first,” he said. “There is a strong and relentless pushback against women’s rights.” Do you agree?   Kanem: There is no doubt that patriarchy is entrenched in many societies. To tackle it, we must engage men and boys and make them part of the solution.   Many of UNFPA’s programs aim to foster behavior change at the community level, from our “husband” schools across Africa’s Sahel region, which help increase men’s understanding of women and girls’ health needs and rights, to the life skills education we offer to young boys — and girls — around the world, teaching them about positive gender relations and how to dismantle toxic masculinity.   Even before the pandemic, gender-based violence was a problem of epidemic proportions, with one in three women worldwide experiencing physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime. This is a statistic that we need to change.   Since the time of Methuselah, women have been victimized in their homes. Women want that to change, men want that to change, young people are leading this change. This is going to be hard to do, but UNFPA is willing to lead to make it happen.   As we saw at the [UNFPA] Nairobi Summit in 2019, which galvanized concrete voluntary commitments in support of sexual and reproductive health and gender equality, and more recently at the Generation Equality Forum, the push forward by the global community is stronger than the pushback.   We are seeing wonderful solidarity and mobilization across society — women and young people marching in the streets, making their voices heard, demanding their rights. We are also seeing more men and boys joining the movement and speaking out against gender-based violence and systemic gender inequality.   Let us also not forget that racism and discrimination have long been part of that equation. UNFPA is proudly partnering with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the International Decade of People of African Descent (2015-2024) under its theme of recognition, justice and development.   UNFPA has a strong global footprint, you as its executive director must travel widely and often. How useful are these trips and the impressions they make on you regarding your planning or even rethinking the fund’s priorities?   Kanem: The minute I was vaccinated, I prioritized going on mission to humanitarian settings. Like so many others, I was grounded in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. I missed not being able to see firsthand the impact of UNFPA’s work on the ground and speak to the communities we serve. I am proud of the way UNFPA staff around the world adapted so quickly and rose to the challenge. They continue to show up for the women and girls we serve in the more than 150 locations where we operate.   My first missions post-“lockdown” were to Sudan, Yemen, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, via Ethiopia. These visits were part of my strong commitment to support women and girls in my role as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s champion on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.   My experience in Yemen will stay with me forever. I’ve been in many maternity wards, and they are usually places of joy. But in Yemen, I witnessed the devastation of malnutrition and hunger, with newborn babies on feeding tubes and mothers weakened by fear and exhaustion. It was heartbreaking to see fellow members of the human family in such dire conditions.   UNFPA is a longstanding partner in Yemen, where we provide essential, lifesaving medicines and services to support women’s health, ensure safe deliveries, and prevent and respond to gender-based violence.   That unrivalled field presence is part of what makes UNFPA unique. Our heart lies in the field, in maternity wards, in women’s safe spaces and on boats, motorbikes and in the backpacks of our roving service providers who take our lifesaving supplies to those who need them most.   In the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May, I listened as woman after woman recounted stories of the horrible, heavy price they pay with their rights, their bodies and their lives. These women are not passive victims. They were emboldened to call for change and a greater voice in decision-making related to their safety and protection. They wrote their recommendations on the spot as we sat outdoors in a circle.   I immediately shared their demands for action with the network of colleagues devoted to protection from sexual exploitation and abuse. Feedback mechanisms are essential to protect women’s rights and deliver justice.   I conferred with changemakers such as Nobel laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege, a key ally in global efforts to protect and defend women, whose Panzi Hospital in Congo provides survivors of sexual and gender-based violence medical and psychological treatment, job skills and other support.   These missions allow me to learn from inspirational colleagues, listen to the needs of communities, and see the impact and challenges of UNFPA’s work. It is my duty to apply the knowledge that I have gained and to share these stories with the world and with you.   More women are being elected to higher political positions globally, many of them young with new ideas. Do you see better days ahead?   Kanem: Absolutely. Because I have faith in young people to transform the situation that we have handed to them. I have repeatedly declared my trust in young people, including young women, who have succeeded in galvanizing action during the pandemic.   We see women leading at all levels today, from heads of state to CEOs to our youth advocates on the ground.   Throughout the pandemic, I have been constantly inspired by women sustaining health systems as the majority of front-line workers, while often juggling extra care-giving responsibilities at home.   Despite evidence that shows that women’s leadership changes the world for the better — even peace is more durable when women are involved in conflict resolution — no country has yet attained complete gender parity in leadership. But I believe that we will get there, by dismantling the obstacles that still block women’s paths.   Defying practices that harm women and girls and undermine equality   Every day, hundreds of thousands of girls around the world are subjected to practices that harm them physically or psychologically, or both. The practices reduce and limit their capacity to participate fully in society and to reach their full potential.   The impact ripples throughout society and reinforces the very gender stereotypes and inequalities that gave rise to the harm in the first place. Three widespread harmful practices are female genital mutilation, child marriage and son preference: http://bit.ly/2UMS4J1 Visit the related web page
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