Posted Date: May 20, 1996
What InterAction Members Are Doing to Bring Beijing Home
What InterAction Members Are Doing to Bring Beijing Home
"NGOs have worked hard to organize and energize the Beijing conference. But whether or not the conference is a success depends largely on what we do afterwards. We need to maintain our momentum and keep women’s issues on the national and global agenda."
Julia V. Taft, president and CEO of InterAction, and a member of the official US delegation to the World Conference on Women
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InterAction Member Agencies Carry Beijing Agenda Forward in their Programs
Beyond promoting Beijing implementation by multilateral agencies and national governments (see p. 1 articles), NGOs need to define the implications of the Platform for Action for their own programs and policies. As a coalition of development, relief and refugee assistance organizations, InterAction faces a special challenge: how to fully integrate gender equity into the activities of its members. The Commission on the Advancement of Women (CAW) is mobilizing member agencies to get involved in Beijing follow-up, just as it did in mobilizing participation in the preparatory activities; highlights of some member initiatives are presented below. In addition, CAW is continuing its efforts to encourage agencies to support gender equity in their policies and programs. Amendments have been developed for InterAction's operating and ethical standards which define guidelines for gender equity in policies, personnel procedures, and programs. To assist with compliance to the guidelines, CAW is also providing training, workshops, and consultations to its members.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute's post-Beijing activities include disseminating information to national women's organizations and educating policymakers on the Conference's achievements and actions that need to be taken to implement the Beijing consensus in domestic and international policies and programs. Continued efforts will be made to ensure that the Congress and Administration follow through on their commitments particularly those relating to reproductive and sexual health.
Center of Concern recently designed a Women Connecting Beyond Beijing workshop manual to engage local and grassroots women's groups in identifying and taking action on issues of the Conference that are most critical to their local concerns. Through information sharing, group discussion and participatory activities, participants identify relevant issues from the Platform for Action and explore mechanisms for linking their local concerns to a global agenda. Participants also develop strategies for action plans for the future of their local, as well as the global, community. A packet containing a facilitator's guide and all supporting materials, including invitations to attend, press releases for local publicity, charts and visual aids ($15), as well as participants' workbooks ($3 each) are available through the Center.
Childreach/Plan International has incorporated into their program policy a clear statement of organizational commitment to gender equity, and developed a Strategic Plan for including gender equity into their programs and systems prior to Beijing. A Gender Awareness in PLAN (GAP) workgroup has been established and funds have been designated for GAP activities. The Beijing Conference has strengthened these efforts. In January `96, a one week session on "Gender Policy and Planning" will be held for international and national representatives. Furthermore, Plan International proposes to develop a 5 year program that will provide access to credit and training for poor women, and will prepare a report on the outcome of Beijing and recommendations for further action to be presented to their top management.
Heifer Project International (HPI) will conduct workshops in the Philippines (Feb `96) and the Dominican Republic (Mar `96) on gender analysis, sensitivity and programming for grassroots communities. In April `96, a Training Workshop at headquarters will focus on techniques to increase women's participation in livestock projects, and establish an organizational gender policy. HPI will convene a networking workshop in Zimbabwe (Oct `96) to introduce women from HPI-assisted livestock projects to NGO and government agencies who work on literacy, family planning, legal, violence and gender issues.
International Center for Research on Women has developed an aggressive agenda to implement the Beijing Platform for Action focusing on women's health and reproductive activities, women's economic participation and women and the environment. Since Beijing, ICRW has helped organize a meeting: "Lessons Learned from Beijing: Implications for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care for Women." It helped develop a strategic plan for integrating a gender perspective into UNAIDS (a new UN AIDS body) policies and programs and continues to work with UNAIDS staff to develop and implement the plan. Also, ICRW has undertaken several projects that examine family planning knowledge, needs and feasibility, and has initiated gender training for family planning organizations in Honduras and Guatemala. It has launched a grants project, the Promoting Women in Development through Advocacy and Research (PROWID) Project, to support research and advocacy programs that emphasize women's economic participation, and their human and legal rights.
Laubach Literacy International's post-Beijing plans for their global network of affiliated programs include: producing a summary of the Platform for Action relevant to the grassroots literacy and development work of their partner programs in 30 countries, with attention to the Platform's actions to enhance women's survival and empowerment; developing Laubach position papers on the role of literacy in addressing issues of women's economic self-sufficiency and violence against women; presenting a workshop entitled Realizing the Dream of Beijing: Women and Literacy (June '96) to encourage discussion of Conference issues and the Platform's recommendation for NGOs, and to develop strategies for implementing relevant action through local literacy efforts.
Oxfam America's post-Beijing gender advocacy priorities include: promotion of gender-sensitive macroeconomic policies by governments and International Financial Institutions; advocating for greater investment in women and integration of gender analysis in bi- and multilateral development assistance programs; and ratification and implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Againt Women (CEDAW) by countries where Oxfam works. Oxfam will actively participate in the Women's Eyes on the Bank campaign to monitor Bank activities and hold it accountable for Platform implemention, and has cosponsored a conference on "Women's Human Rights: Beyond Beijing" in December `95. Additionally, it will support efforts to hold governments accountable through disseminating information crucial to advocacy efforts of its partners.
Partners of the Americas held a workshop (Nov `95) with the support of USAID and USIA in Trinidad. Leaders from 14 Caribbean nations and their US partners discussed specific ways to tie the Platform for Action to their work in local partnerships, government agencies and NGOs. They identified common approaches to public awareness campaigns and forged a network of women leaders to further the goals of the Platform. The workshop produced an Action Agenda which includes: networking locally and across the region; advocating at the national level for legislation against domestic violence and counting women's unpaid work; conducting community-level workshops to inform women and youth of their rights; encouraging women to participate in political processes by offering leadership training, fundraising for candidates, and leading voter education campaigns.
Save the Children USA met recently in England with its counterparts from Sweden, Norway and UK to establish follow-up strategies to Beijing. A gender task force of the Save the Children Alliance was established to raise child-focused gender awareness among its members and externally. The Task Force will build capacity within the Alliance and its partners to develop tools for analysis and research to increase understanding of the situation of boys and girls and relations between them; and to develop appropriate training and dissemination strategies. In addition, it will expand gender awareness and promote better gender integration in its own member programs through the development of an Alliance-wide policy statement on gender as it concerns children. The Task Force will also analyze Conference outcomes as they relate to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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There are many different ways in which your organization can actively take part in turning the words of Beijing into action for women's empowerment:
Disseminate information about agreements and commitments made in Beijing
Convene discussion groups among staff and project partners to identify priority areas for advocacy
Work with local project partners and NGO coalitions in different countries to hold governments accountable for specific commitments made in Beijing and return the enclosed "commitments campaign form"
Design new projects to implement specific recommendations from the Platform for Action in key sectoral areas (health, education, economic empowerment, environment and women in decision making)
Incorporate gender analysis into the planning and evaluation phases of all your projects, including the collection of gender disaggregated data
Actively recruit women and men who are committed to women's empowerment in senior, mid-level and field management positions
Increase and/or strengthen programming in women's leadership training, advocacy and network building
Find ways to increase resources for women's NGOs that are engaged in implementation of the Platform for Action
Join "Women's Eyes on the Bank" campaign to hold the Bank accountable for implementing its part of the Platform for Action
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