UNRISD WORKSHOP ON GENDER JUSTICE, DEVELOPMENT AND RIGHTS

BEIJING+5 NEGOTIATIONS: Serious Risks and Disturbing Repetitions The meeting of the Preparatory Committee for Beijing + 5 ended on March 17, 2000 with its agenda still unfinished. The negotiations during the preceding two weeks were painfully slow and subject to endless delays and delaying tactics. 

Sonia Onufer Correa,DAWN Research Coordinator on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, has written a brief commentary on the meanings of the brackets in the draft Political Declaration:Beijing+5 - Women 2000 Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century that was released by the UN Division for the Advancement of Women in January. In the commentary, As Usual: Words and Interests, she reflects on the semantic battles that characterised United Nations negotiations during the 1990s, particularly when matters under discussion concerned women. The same interests are battling over the words in this draft.

  A reflection on the five year reviews of the UN Conferences of the 1990s, titled Gender Justice and Economic Justice has been prepared for UNIFEM by Gita Sen, DAWN Research Coordinator of Globalisation; and Sonia Onufer Correa, DAWN Research Coordinator on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, in preparation for the five-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action. Their analysis bears on the UN Advance Unedited Version "Gender Development and Peace for the 21st Century" prepared for negotiation at the Prepcom 3-17 March 2000. 

They warn that the challenges facing feminist attempts to link gender justice with economic justice at global, national and local levels comes from two directions: the complex, poorly understood and poorly regulated processes of globalisation which appears as the new form of free-market juggernaut that obscures possible alternatives to a global capitalist order driven by deep inequalities; and a set of reactions to these processes of globalisation that includes strengthening national, religion-based, ethnic or other identities through the assertion of "traditional" gender roles and systems of authority and control.

  Women's International Coalition on Economic Justice (WIJEC) DAWN is part of a group of NGOs that work in the area of gender, trade, debt, macro-economic and development- related issues, that is planning an economic justice caucus for the Beijing+5 UNGASS in NewYork 5-9 June 2000. DAWN's Past General Coordinator, Peggy Antrobus, attended a Caucus planning meeting held at Stony Point, New York, prior to the Beijing+5 PrepCom, 6-17 March, which resulted in a draft statement, the Stony Point Declaration. Concerns of the group include bringing the analysis and energy from the World Trade Organisation Seattle campaign into the UN processes; countering resistance to economic justice and economic rights as part of the Beijing Platform of Action; insufficient emphasis on economic and social aspects of women's human rights; and strategies for the special session on Financing for Development now being planned. 

CAMPAIGN DAWN supports the "See Change" Campaign of Catholics for a Free Choice to change the Holy See's status at the UN. The Roman Catholic Church is the only religion which has the status of a Non-member State Permanent Observer. There were concerns that difficulties with the Vatican experienced at the Cairo+5 meetings will disrupt preparations in the Beijing+5 process.  Further information is available from Catholics for a Free Choice website www.seechange.org and email: info@seechange.org

For Further Information on Beijing+5
Detailed information about aspects of the Beijing+5 is available on many other websites, some of which are listed here. 

PARTICIPATION
Unifem
UN Division for the Advancement of Women

UN INFORMATION
UN Division for the Advancement of Women
UNDP Gender in Development Programme

DATES & LINKS
WEDO
Social Watch
Unifem

NEWS
Unifem
DOCUMENTS
UN Division for the Advancement of Women
Unifem

Information in Portuguese
IBASE