|
|
Delegation Reports
Parliamentary meeting on the occasion
of the 52nd Session of the Commission of the Status of Women, UN Headquarters,
New York, 27 February 2008
Delegation
Rt Hon Hilary Armstrong MP
Eleanor Laing MP
The Commission is an annual event which attracts a large number of NGO’s
from around the world, and at which governments are held to account for
their progress on the Beijing agenda.
The Ambassador at the British mission, hosted a reception for those attending
the CSW which was an opportunity to meet others attending the Commission.
The mission staff were helpful throughout the week, including hosting
a session for the parliamentarians at the event for a comprehensive briefing
on issues more generally at the UN.
The priority theme for the CSW was Financing for gender equality and the
empowerment of women, and the IPU and UN Division for the Advancement
of Women(UNDAW) organised a parliamentary event entitled: The role of
parliament in financing for gender equality. The day was split in two,
with the morning session concentrating on parliament’s role in maximising
national wealth in favour of women and gender equality, and in the afternoon,
financing gender equality in politics. There were in the region of 50
countries present.
The day was chaired by Ms Monica Xavier, Senator from Uruguay, and President
of the IPU Co-ordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians. The first
speaker was Gertrude Mangela, from Tanzania, President of the Pan-African
Parliament; she had also chaired the Beijing meeting. She talked about
the improvement in political representation there had been since Beijing,
but that that was not necessarily reflected in the economic sphere, and
challenged us to think about how we had used political advancement for
women to improve economic equality for women in our countries.
Simel Esim from the ILO then spoke about the Financing for Development
programme, and the need to use gender budgeting as a tool to ensure that
economic decisions take better account of the needs of women. She outlined
a range of strategies to be considered into future international negotiations.
Lyde Err from the EU and a member of the Council of Europe, and Winnie
Byayima who had been a member of the Ugandan parliament and is now the
Director of the UNDP, spoke about gender sensitive budgeting.
Lyde Err said this form of budgeting was a matter of political will, technical
knowledge and resources. Winnie Byayima emphasised that gender budgeting
was not about a separate budget for women, but the means of examining
budgets to see the differential effects on men and women, and then identify
gaps and raise policy issues accordingly. This then allows parliamentarians
to hold governments accountable.
She described how she and others had used this in Uganda by analysing
the position of women with civil society organisations, academics and
parliamentary colleagues, assessing policy documents that come with the
budget to assess the impact on men and women, not just people generally,
then making sure that policy distinctions are addressed in the budget.
She then gave some very graphic examples from her own constituency!
In the afternoon, we looked at the financing of gender equality in politics,
and financing women’s participation in politics. This was an opportunity
to hear the experiences of women from different countries in trying to
get involved in their political systems. It was clear that there needed
to be some measure of positive action for women to really make progress.
The closing session was with a speaker from South Africa, Ms P Govender
who was an MP from 1994-2002, and Caroline Hannam, who is Director of
the Division of the Promotion of Women at the UN.
Ms Govender spoke about her experience as a new ANC member and the work
she did from a committee basis to look at the budget process and content
to seek to ensure positive effects for women.
Ms Hannan launched the map that was produced jointly by the UN and the
IPU illustrating the numbers of women in parliaments around the world,
and the numbers of women in governments. She also highlighted that their
research showed that there was very little attention given to costing
inequality, and emphasised that the work of the Commission on the status
of women was only as good as work on the ground. She also drew attention
to the Secretary General’s campaign for 2008-2015 against the violence
of women.
The next day there was joint IPU and UNIFEM ‘side event’ on
Political Accountability to women: the Role of Women in Politics. The
panel discussed the conditions under which women in politics have been
able to improve public accountability to women and to represent effectively
and defend women’s needs and interests. There was then a lively
discussion.
Hilary Armstrong was then asked to be part of the press conference where
the IPU and UN presented the map to the media.
|
|
