by Kudzai Makombe and Tamar Zere
This is the third in a four-part series on the UN fourth world conference on women to be held in Beijing, China in September 1995.
The world’s largest gathering of women, the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women (WCW) will provide women’s organizations a significant opportunity to lobby their governments toward a true and lasting commitment to improving the status of women.
The Conference expects an all record attendance of 30 000 women from over 185 countries. The overall objective of NGOs is: the creation of a forward-looking society in which women play an integral role in the scientific, technological, economical and political development towards the 21st century. The question of empowering women towards decision-making and the implementation and completion of the Nairobi Forward-Looking strategies is imperative.
The adoption by governments of the draft Platform for Action, the major document, will be the crux of the conference. The draft Platform for Action was negotiated during the 39th session of CSW (the
Commission on the Status of Women) from 15 March to 4 April. The CSW adopted 12 resolutions and agreed to establish a working group which would introduce the right of individuals to petition in cases of violations of women’s human rights.
The draft platform for action will cover 200 actions to be undertaken by governments, the international community, NGOs and the private sector, to ensure the full integration of women. Building on three previous women’s conferences and the UN Decade for Women, the conference should also result in the full implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies by the year 2000. To find solutions and bring the expectations of NGOs closer to reality, a lot of lobbying and advocacy work will have to be done.
The need for women to improve advocacy skills reflects the realization that change is hard pressed to come until women’s NGOs become politically active. Women have had a long time distrust of politics yet democratic openings exist and must be taken advantage of.
A dialogue that usually rears its ugly head is the connection between advocacy and politics. As defined, lobbying speaks on behalf of others; whereas policy-making entails organizing people in finding a voice.
For some, this debate calls into question the role NGOs have found for themselves. “Advocacy means that beneficiaries become constituents and this requires fundamental changes in our mission, programmes, and organizational operations,” stated a Zimbabwean NGO participant to the Beijing Conference.
The politicking that has already taken place in the struggle for women`s NGOs just to get to Beijing and the difficulties in defining widely used terms speaks of the challenges that face the forum. Irene Santiago, chair of the NGO forum, voiced concern over the back-peddling of governments in the process of drawing up and finding language for the Draft Platform of Action.
“We are appalled by how some governments are trying to systematically roll back agreements already reached in previous international conferences,” she says.
NGOs will also have to overcome their lack of unity and coordination if they are going to be successful in Beijing. Many NGOs tend to be proactive of their territory and donors thus unwilling to work with other NGOs.
Yet, in a nation as diverse as South Africa, women from all walks of life managed to coalesce and form he National Women`s coalition to draw-up a Women`s Charter and achieve a 24 per cent female representation in parliament. “Agreeing to disagree and sharing a common goal,” as their credo.
The priority areas of concern on the draft Platform for Action concern mainly the South, and Africa in particular. African women will require powerful strategies to ensure that these areas are accepted globally. “We have had 20 years of conference… 20 years of deliberations. I think we have just had enough. We must change all these 20 years into action.” Says Ghananian first lady, Nana Konadu Agyaman-Rawlings.
A meeting was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to discuss critical areas of concern to Africa. Women met to discuss a strategy for NGOs to ensure threat African women speak with one voice about issues that affect them at the Conference. For African women, the Beijing Conference is about forcing issues that are particular to them into an already crowded agenda.
Although African women are not homogenous the women of the southern Africa region face difficulties similar to their counterparts in other parts of the continent. Yes, the significant difference in culture, tradition, politics, economics, historical background and ongoing civil strife renders them vulnerable in the face of extreme disparity.
With the end of apartheid, peace in Mozambique and a process toward peace in Angola, new democratic governments in Malawi and Zambia, the region faces an era of stability. However, the scourge of landmines continues to plague agrarian society made up primarily of women who constitute 70 per cent of the rural population.
With this in mind, the Beijing Conference must focus its intention on the needs of the millions of women who are the back bone of nations. With this conference is only a single event, it heralds the growing power of women and the wielding of that power. “It does not define, nor can it contain, the energy or the agenda of the Global Women’s Movement.” Contends Maria Riley, director of the Women Project at the Washington based Center of Concern. (SARDC)
