What is the Women's Action Agenda 2002?
The Women's Action Agenda 21 was originally the platform used to lobby for a
consideration of women and gender in the United Nations Conference for
Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro, 1992 (also known as
the Rio Earth Summit). In 1991 women started getting prepared for the Summit
and in November 1991, 1500 women from 83 countries met in Miami for the
World
Women's Conference for a Healthy planet. The Women's Action Agenda 21 grew
out of this meeting.
When the 1992 summit started there was hardly any mention of women at all,
however, by the time the final document was drawn up, now known as Agenda
21,
there were more than 120 recommendations through the whole document and an
entire section (section 24) devoted to women and the importance of women in
environmental sustainability and resource management.
Over the last 10 years this platform has been used repeatedly by various
women's groups for advocacy, action and organizing. This platform has also
been the basis for the work of the Commission for Sustainable Development
(CSD) women's caucus which chooses the theme each year and develops a gender
agenda to open dialogue with governments and international institutions from
around the world present in New York. These dialogues that have ensured over
a ten year period provoked the thought that it would be useful to gather all
of the information from them and use it to form a new agenda - the Women's
Action Agenda 2002. This agenda will be used as a main strategy to get
gender
concerns into the World Summit 2002 to be held in Johannesburg in September
2002.
Based on consultations with the CSD Women's Caucus, a working group
identified
10 new themes for the Women's Action Agenda 2002. These themes will then be
drawn up into a draft document through consultation at a series of regional
meetings. The resulting draft will be circulated electronically for
consultation at the second and third prepcoms in New York and Geneva. A
final
draft will be resented and finalized at the Indonesia prepcom for the Earth
Summit. The entire process is being kept open so that as many groups as
possible can contribute and participate. By September 2002 there should be a
draft that can be presented to various governments and organizations present
at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
What are the 10 themes of the new agenda?
The ten themes are as follows;
Theme 1: Agenda 21, Participation and the Multi-stakeholder process.
Theme 2: Globalization: Transparency and Accountability in Transnational
Institutions.
Theme 3: Environmental Dimensions of Armed Conflict: Role of Women.
Theme 4: Free Market Ideology, Sustainable Production, and Consumption.
Theme 5: Democracy, Human rights and Women's Access to and Control of
Resources.
Theme 6: Protecting Environmental Health and Security.
Theme 7: Gender and Environmental Dimensions of Population Policies.
Theme 8: Protecting Indigenous Knowledge, Biodiversity and Sustainable Land
Use.
Theme 9: The Gender Dimension of Sustainable Cities.
Theme 10: Education, Communication and Information Technologies.
What do you think has been accomplished since the 1992 World Summit?
Really not a great deal has been accomplished on a global scale. However,
there has been a greatly increased awareness and mainstreaming of gender
issues at all levels. When we started 10 years ago the only interest in
gender and the environment was in the question of population. Women were
thought of only as the ones who had children and who were responsible for
the
population growth. Since 1992 a much deeper understanding of the centrality
of
women in sustainable programs in and in environmental protection has
emerged.
In terms of impact it has to be remembered that the indicators of
development
have not shown significant progress. The goals of Agenda 21 are far from
being implemented. However, in my work with strategies at the local level, I
have noticed that may more policies include gender and that there is much
more
awareness about the importance of gender in sustainable development.
What are some of the big challenges that make it more difficult to have
gender
and the environment considered in a useful way?
Until 1992 environmental issues were almost solely perceived in the
conservationist framework. 'Wild' spaces had to be set aside with no human
use in order for environmental sustainability to have taken place. The human
dimension was seen as being very far away and was marginalized. One of the
first challenges we faced was trying to bring the international community
and
environmental groups to see the human dimensions of the environment. Many of
the concerns in the Women and Environment framework relate protection of the
environment to quality of life. Issues like maintaining clean water,
avoiding
persistent organic pollutants (POP's), working to promote clean air - they
address serious environmental issues with a human dimension. It was
extremely
difficult to bring these issues into the discussion but their gradual
inclusion has been very positive.
What are you hoping will emerge from the World Summit for Sustainable
Development 2002?
The Women's Action Agenda 2002 has 10 main points/themes and we hope that we
can be vocal enough to have them included as key points in the overall
global
agenda. We hope that our concerns will be included in the overall agenda
more strongly than they were 10 years ago. We also have to remember that
there are other sectors besides government and that can help to bring our
priorities into action, such as the series of nine categories of major
groups
as highlighted at Agenda 21.
Is there any way people could get more information about this?
These are the webpages which have relevant information:
Webpage of the women's caucus: www.earthsummit2002.org/wcaucus/cdsngo.htm
Webpage UNED Forum: www.earthsummit2002.org
Webpage of Heirinch Boell: www.worldsummit.de
Oficial Webpage for the Meeting of the UN: www.johannesburgsummit.org
Our regional meetings are going to be held at the following dates;
Latin America and the Caribbean - 19 and 20th October, 2001
North America - 8-11th November 2001
Africa - 24th October 2001
Asia - May 27th - June 7th 2002 (during this period)