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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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Young Women from DAWN Training Institutes speak on Gender, Economic and Ecological Justice at CSW55
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At CSW55, DAWN brought together four young women activists who have either participated or will be participating in our regional trainings cum consultations interlinking Gender, Economic & Ecological Justice (GEEJ). These processes draw on seasoned activists and policy makers while engaging and training young women activists in this dialogue and debate. In 2010 DAWN convened two regional GEEJ workshops in the Pacific in collaboration with the Pacific Network on Globalisation and in Africa in collaboration with Third World Network Africa. In 2011 we will convene one in Latin America and the Caribbean with the International Council on Adult Education and the last in Asia which will also be a cross regional process.
One of our key objectives is to break the fragmented, siloized approaches to funding, programs and advocacy. A regionalized, south-south process led by global South women is essential to such feminist interlinkage work. We are also linking activists engaged in this process to various national, regional and global policy development and advocacy processes, including this CSW 55, COP 17 and Rio+20.
The average age of the panelists (see below) was 27 years of age, which is likely the lowest of any panel at this CSW!
   
1. Implications for PACER Plus on Women, Economic, Social and Climate Issues in the Pacific by Lice Cokanasiga
Lice from Fiji is PANG’s (Pacific Network on Globalisation) Trade Justice Campaign. PANG is one of the most outspoken CSOs in the Pacific on free trade, economic reform policies, regional policy-making processes, and the agendas of multilateral and biliateral donors. At PANG, she has researched the impact of free trade on customary land rights. Lice participated in the GEEJ Pacific training/consultation held in Fiji September 2010.
2. Market Reform and the Food Crisis in Africa: Locating Women as Agents of Change by Hibist Kassa
Hibist from Ethiopia and based in Ghana is graduate student of Political Science at the University of Ghana and a writer on Elevate Difference. She is a member of the Inter Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), the Student Worker Solidarity Society (SWSS), and manages a facebook group called “Lets Talk Gender Equality”. Hibist participated in the GEEJ Africa training/consultation held in Accra last November.
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