Women’s Needs Are High on MDG Summit Agenda
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NEW YORK, Aug. 11 – Action to meet the needs of women and girls will be high on the agenda at next month’s summit here, when world leaders convene to assess progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. Some women’s advocates want to raise the issue even higher.
Theme of the Sept. 20-22 United Nations summit meeting is “Making it happen by 2015.” Six round-table sessions, each co-chaired by two heads of state or government, will discuss a recent 15-page report from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that found mixed results in the ten years since world leaders established the MDGs in 2000.
Noting that only five years remain until the 2015 MDG deadline that the leaders set for themselves, the report described some progress in all eight MDGs. However, escalating climate change and the global economic downturn caused hunger and poverty to spike in 2009, stalling further movement. It said progress on MDG 5, improving maternal health, is lagging most.
However, the MDGs can still be achieved if national development strategies, policies and programs are supported by international development partners, the report said. “The summit will be a crucially important opportunity to redouble our efforts to meet the goals,” said Ban. “Our challenge today is to agree on an action agenda.”
Polly Truscott, Amnesty International’s deputy UN representative, said Ban’s paper offered only a “superficial” discussion of gender equality, treating it as a key goal rather than a basic human right. She and her team have produced their own version of the document calling for women’s empowerment to be recognized as a “fundamental value and an issue of social justice.”
The Global Call to Action Against Poverty, an international civil society coalition of 162 partners in 130 countries, is also lobbying for the summit’s outcome document to include gendered language and gender-specific commitments throughout, rather than bracketing them into women-specific sections.
"It's of course not a bad thing to make a strong statement about maternal health, except if it is made in exclusivity," said Lysa John, campaign director of the Global Call. "It's not an issue you can work on in isolation. It's not just about access to a hospital or medical care; it's nutrition, education, sexual and reproductive rights and much more at all stages of a woman's life."
A side event by the advocacy group Women Deliver will seek to mobilize conference participants to make those points in their presentations using language documenting women’s value to families, communities and nations.
In a June 30 statement on the summit, U.S. President Barack Obama said, “Meeting the needs of women and girls is at the core of our presidential initiatives.” The statement criticized slow rates of reducing maternal mortality and child malnutrition and noted that gender inequality “hampers achievement of most MDGs.” It added, “Investing in and empowering women and girls is central to promoting sustainable development and achieving many MDGs.”
Calling for stronger rules and institutions to protect women’s human and economic rights, to educate girls and to measure gender differences in policy impacts, the statement said, “Empowering women is an important force multiplier in its own right, as well as a key ingredient for sustaining development gains.”
The administration pledged $30 million to assist victims of gender-based violence in Africa and $60 million in new programs to address child labor abuses, as well as support for enforcement of women’s legal rights in 10 countries and legislation to combat sexual harassment, domestic violence and human trafficking in several countries.
Program events at the three-day summit will include sessions on “Mother and Child Health Care,” by the International Red Cross and selected member states; “Progress and the World’s Women: Gender Justice and the MDGs,” sponsored by Denmark; “Botswana’s experience with integrated approach to HIV/AIDS challenges,” with the Global Health Council and others; “Women, Peace and Security,” sponsored by Switzerland; and the Launch of the Joint Action Plan on Women and Children’s Health, by the Secretary-General’s office.
Letty Chiwara, chief of the Africa Division of the UN’s Development Fund for Women, also wants the summit outcome to include specific, itemized goals for women, such as more funding for women living with HIV/AIDS and greater political participation for women everywhere.
"We've had enough commitments and we don't want a document that narrates the good work we have done," said Chiwara. "We want a document that articulates key gaps and what actions we need to close those. We still need a lot of work to achieve that."
Resources
Millennium Development Goals Summit - September 20-22, 2010, New York
Millennium Development Goals Report 2010
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s report: Keeping the Promise
A forward-looking review to promote an agreed action agenda to
achieve the MDGs by 2015
Celebrate, Innovate and Sustain: Toward 2015 and Beyond
The United States’ Strategy for Meeting the Millennium Development Goals
The path to achieving the Millennium Development Goals: A synthesis of evidence from around the world
What Will It Take To Achieve The Millennium Development Goals?
Millennium Development Goals Report Card: Learning from Progress
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Millennium Development Goals: 2010 Progress Chart
Official list of MDG indicators
MDGs After the Crisis - The World Bank
Women and children stand to bear the brunt of the global economic crisis
Millennium Development Goals
Millennium Developmnt Goals – We can end poverty 2015
Secretary-General’s MDG Advocacy Group
World Health Organization
Videos and Testimonials
8 Goals for Africa
MDG Video Spot to increase awareness and galvanize support
Antonio Banderas Goodwill Ambassador speaks on MDGs
Global Population is Aging and at Turning Point, Study Says
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WASHINGTON, July 28 -- Population size has pretty much peaked in the world’s more developed countries, but birth rates in poorer countries are falling more slowly than expected, the Population Reference Bureau reported today.
Releasing its annual World Population Data Sheet, the nonpartisan research organization said 2010 is “a transition point” for global population. Because of continued high birth rates in the developing world, overall population growth will continue for decades, while better medical care means that the proportion of elderly people is rising everywhere.
“This demographic shift is unprecedented in world history, and is most likely irreversible,” the report said. With fewer working-age people available to support both the aging and the very young, the shift will test national pension plans and long-term health care systems.
China remains the world’s most populous country, with 1.34 billion people, but is expected to lose that title by 2050, when global population will be 9.15 billion to 9.5 billion, the report said. India, now second at 1.19 billion people, is projected to grow to 1.75 billion by then, to China’s 1.44 billion. The United States is now third-largest at 310 million and is projected to reach 423 million by 2050, chiefly through immigration. Africa’s population is expected to double, to at least 2.1 billion, and could rise much more if the use of family planning does not increase significantly, the report said.
Women in less-developed countries are now having about 2.5 children each, compared with six each in the early 1950s, “a much more rapid decrease than that of Europe and North America,” the report said. “As impressive as that decline may be, there is still a long way to go.”
United Nations Creates New Agency for Women
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UNITED NATIONS – A separate and distinct umbrella organization for women was created in early July by the United Nations (UN) to accelerate the empowerment of women. United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, or simply UN Women, will deal exclusively with gender-related issues.
Four existing women’s entities at the UN folded into UN Women, while taking into consideration the mandates of each entity. Merged into UN Women were: the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM); the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues; the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW); and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW).
Goals of UN Women are to support the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and other inter-governmental bodies in devising policies; assist UN member states implement standards, provide technical and financial support to countries that request it, and forge partnerships with civil society and within the UN; and hold the world body accountable for its own commitments on gender equality.
According to news reports, UN Women is expected to have an annual budget of $500 million, doubling the combined resources of the four merged agencies.
The executive board for UN Women will be based on the geographical distribution of seats by UN member states, with a second category reserved for donor countries, made up of the four top contributors to the core budget and two from developing nations. Overall, the board will consist of 41 countries with seats distributed as follows: Africa-10; Asia-10; Eastern Europe-four; Latin America and the Caribbean-six; Western Europe and Other Groups-five; plus contributing donors-six.
The new entity is a result of years of negotiations among member states and advocacy by women’s groups globally. It comes years, and in some cases decades, after the UN created agencies to deal with specific issues related to children, population, refugees, food, environment, education, health and tourism.
The under secretary general is expected to be named in September, with the organization set to become operational in January 2011.
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