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In acknowledgement of the urgent need for more effective and interlinked regional feminist responses from the economic south involving and in support of women advocates working in areas of gender and development, DAWN is organising a series of regional consultations and training institutes on “Strengthening Policy Analysis and Advocacy on Gender, Economic and Ecological Justice” in three regions - the Pacific, Africa and Latin America - in 2010 and 2011.
This advocacy is part of DAWN’s on-going effort to help promote awareness on and resolution to three major challenges highlighted in global governance debates: The first challenge is the existence of double standards in the response to the triple crisis. An unequal playing field in key policy areas is a major obstacle to coordinated response. The second challenge is the search for a sustainable model of economic recovery, growth, and development. The focus on financing climate change mitigation and adaptation is too narrow given the significant resource flows needed for developing countries to shift from high carbon, fossil-fuel energy to low carbon, renewable energy sources; to address the food crisis exacerbated by extreme and frequent climate events, floods, droughts, storms, loss of arable land and biodiversity; and to provide social protection for groups most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change including disease, landlessness, migration, poverty, and much more. Thus, far solutions to all these challenges have tended to be market- or technology-oriented and driven by corporate interests, which have created new inequalities between the North and the South. The third challenge is the inconsistencies between international trade rules (both WTO and regional trade mechanisms) and international environmental agreements.While economic south governments and civil society acknowledge some of these converging crises, as in other regions of the globe the inter-linkages between them are often ignored.
This project brings together actors working in various spheres of the areas of gender, economic and climate justice in the three regions of the Pacific, Africa and Latin America, in settings where people can raise difficult questions and political challenges in an atmosphere of trust and collective reflection. Specifically, participants include researchers and analysts from academia and civil society; policy makers from government, inter-governmental and regional institutions; and young and local women activists. The training institutes and consultations aim to provide venues for sharing information on a range of global and regional responses to the world multiples crises, including new initiatives that challenge hegemonic thinking and systems in finance, trade and monetary, and environmental policymaking, as well as for mapping current measures, mechanisms and programs at national and regional levels; and discuss possibilities, constraints and contradictions. The women’s rights activists from local and regional organizations will have their own facilitated input process.
Through the process, DAWN also hopes to encourage young feminists and women’s rights advocates to increase their engagement in transforming global economic and climate change governance structures; build capacity in policy analysis and advocacy on key gender, economic and climate justice issues, and their interlinkages; and encourage solidarity and support to contribute to policy proposals and social movement activism toward and during regional and global policy advocacy targets including the Tarawa Climate Change Conference (Kiribati, Nov 9-12 2010), CBD COP 10 (Nagoya, 27-29 October 2010), UNFCCC COP 16 (Mexico, Nov 29-Dec 10, 2010), Rio+20' Earth Summit (New York, May 2012), UNFCCC COP 17 (South Africa) and others.*
The GEEJ series began in the Pacific last September 2010, followed by Africa in November 2010, and to be continued in Latin America in March 2011.
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Pacific Regional Consultation and Training Institute on Strengthening Policy Analysis and Advocacy on Gender, Economic and Ecological Justice
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DAWN has described the first decade of the 21st century as the painful birthing of a “fierce new world” in light of the paradigmatic shifts induced by a run-away neoliberal globalization; a militarized and financialized political economy; a crisis in climate and other natural systems; a deepening food crisis; an energy crisis from fossil-fuel dependence; the decline of the nation-state and the reconfiguration of the geopolitical context. These crises have resulted in the emergence of a multilateral terrain that is replete with complicated contradictions, serious fractures, severe backlash, broken promises, and uncertain outcomes for the world’s women, especially women from the economic South, including the Pacific.
In order to gain better understanding of how to make sense of and address these challenges in the region, DAWN convened a back-to-back consultation with Pacific researchers, analysts and policymakers, and training institute for young women activists. The overall aim was to provide a space for exploring issues and responses from a DAWN interlinkages perspective, where economic and climate justice coincide with gender justice.
This meeting, which ran from September 6-9, was part of DAWN’s Gender, Economic and Ecological Justice (GEEJ) Regional Consultations and Training Institute series that will also be carried out in various regions of the South. The program included three main activities – Consultation with Experts, Training Institute with Young Women Activists and Public Forum – that will cover three core issues: Double Standards in Triple Crisis Response; Financing Development with Climate Justice and Women’s Empowerment; and Incoherence between Trade, Environment and Gender Policies and Agreements.
DAWN members from India, Philippines, Madagascar and the Pacific facilitated the meeting, hoping to learn with Pacific policymakers, academics and women’s rights activists with knowledge of linkages between gender, economic and climate justice, and enhancing intergenerational capacities in region-specific women’s movements.
Organized in collaboration with the Pacific Network on Globalization (PANG), this event was held at Holiday Inn Hotel, Suva, Fiji to be attended by 35 participants from the Pacific and sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Global Fund for Women and UNIFEM Pacific (part of UN Women).
Click DOWNLOAD for the GEEJ Pacific Regional Concept Note
GEEJ Pacific and Africa discussions are available at DAWN Informs December 2010 Issue
For more information on GEEJ, click HERE
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