Women Call for Greater Recognition of Gender Equity and Women’s Empowerment Across All Millenium Development Goals (MDGs)

By Margaret Thompson
Radio Feminista/Feminista International Radio Endeavour (FIRE)

July 5, 2005

Bringing a gender perspective to the UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) is a crucial issue that will help ensure that indeed, these goals benefit ALL.  The eight goals, which were signed by UN member governments in 2000, seek by 2015 to cut in half poverty and hunger worldwide, put all children around the world into (at minimum) primary schools, combat HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, improve maternal health and ensure environmental sustainability. 

 

Sound like far reaching and lofty goals?  They are, and have triggered considerable debate, particularly among feminists and the international women’s movement who were shocked and outraged about the limited way that gender was included in the MDGs, being explicitly mentioned in only one goal.  Many say that the lack of consultation with civil society by the U.N. limited their input in the creation and approval of the original goals contributed to this shortsightedness.

Media Coverage of 5-Year MDGs Review by Radio Feminista
& Women's Media Pool

A 5-year review of the goals will take place September 14-16, 2005 at the United Nations in New York, which will be covered by Radio Feminista/Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE-- see www.radiofeminista.net) as well as the Women’s Media Pool (www.womensmediapool.org), a collaborative effort of over 60 women’s media and other groups that started during Beijing +10.

MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

  1. Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger;

  2. Achieve universal primary education;

  3. Promote gender equality and women's empowerment;

  4. Reduce child mortality;

  5. Improve maternal health;

  6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other sicknesses;

  7. Ensure environmental sustainability;

  8. Develop a global partnershiop for development.

To get further input for the review process, Informal Interactive Hearings of the UN General Assembly were held with NGOs, Civil Society Organizations and the Private Sector (23-24 June 2005), as well as strategy meetings by GCAP (Global Call to Action Against Poverty) including the GCAP Feminist Task Force on June 22nd.    

Advocates of the MDGs hail them as providing a common framework agreed to by governments in 2000 with measurable targets and indicators of progress that can be used across all nations.  UN Secretary Kofi Annan claims that mobilizing collective action by nation states, civil society and the private sector will “reshape” the United Nations “in ways not previously imagined, and with a boldness and speed not previously known.”

Lack of Gender Perspective Just One of Many Problems of MDGs

Numerous women’s and feminist groups have criticized the goals for only including gender as a specific issue in one goal, rather than integrating gender equity and women’s empowerment across goals, although these are key to achieving the MDGs.  Also strongly criticized was the decision to leave out key goals such as those related to violence against women and sexual and reproductive rights. 

Peggy Antrobus of Barbados and leader in DAWN noted that sexual and reproductive rights are also a crucial target or indicator of progress related to four other goals:  #3: related to women’s equality and empowerment; #4: child mortality; and #5 maternal health, and #6: combating HIV/AIDS.  Antrobus presented this analysis in a July 2003 conference of a working group on the MDGs and Gender Equality.

Failure to include sexual and reproductive rights in the MDGs represents a step backwards, rather than forward.

Latin American & Caribbean Women's Health Network

Recognition of sexual and reproductive rights and the right to health were a key part of the conceptual advances from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing .  According to the Latin American & Caribbean Women’s Health Network (LACWHN), failure to include these rights in the MDGs represents a step backwards, rather than forward. 

CLADEM (Latin American & Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights) declared that “the agendas of governments and those of some donor agencies are prioritizing the MDGs over the achievement of other programs, including the Beijing Platform for Action, which runs the risk of being consigned to oblivion.”

MDGs Ignore Powerful Contexts of Neoliberal Economic Model and Religious Fundamentalism

Also a problem with the MDGs according to Antrobus, is their abstraction from the social, political and economic context in which they are to be implemented – the ‘political economy’ of the MDGs in a neoliberal economic context.   According to Ana María Pizarro of Nicargua’s Si Mujer, the result is that they transfer authority and legitimacy from the UN to the international financial institutions, including the World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund).

Also a factor in removing sexual and reproductive rights from the MDGs were forces of religious fundamentalism, which, according to Antrobus, have influenced UN conferences going back to the 1994 ICPD in Cairo, as well as greater right-wing control or influence on many governments including that of the U.S..  These trends also represent a backlash against women’s rights, said Antrobus. 

Numerous Women's Groups Launch Advocacy Campaigns to Reshape MDGs

Advocacy campaigns to encourage government officials to reconceptualize and broaden the MDGs to incorporate aspects of gender in all goals, are being launched by several groups including the LACWHN and the GCAP Feminist Task Force.

The GCAP Feminist Task Force outlined several key messages that they plan to promote in lobbying during the MDG +5 review process, including concerns about the definition of “development” in the MDGs which follows the neoliberal economic model (called “economic fundamentalism” by Antrobus), focusing on weakening the public sector and strengthening the private sector by opening up markets, which undermines the role of civil society.   By emphasizing a neoliberal approach, the MDGs fail to account for problems with trade liberalization and unequal net resource flows between north and south.

The Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights stated in 2003 that greater attention should be paid throughout the MDGs to the situation of poor women, minorities and indigenous populations. 

Likewise, CLADEM and also the Feminist Task Force are asking that the MDGs be implemented within a human rights framework that includes economic, social and cultural rights, as well as sexual and reproductive rights, and which also encompasses development and peace.  These groups also advocate a more historic approach that implements the action plans from the UN Conferences in Vienna (human rights), Cairo (sexual and reproductive rights), and Beijing (12-point women’s rights agenda).  In addition, the task force emphasizes greater participation of women in the review and implementation process, including NGOs and women’s organizations.

As for UN Reform, which will intersect with the MDGs review and implementation process, the Feminist Task Force called for greater access by civil society and women’s groups to the UN Security Council and General Assembly.  They also advocate elevating the status of women-specific entities in the UN system, strengthening the role of ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), and increased funding for women-specific and gender mainstreaming work in the UN.


Others may use all of part of this press release for redistribution but please give credit to Radio Feminista/FIRE. 

For more information on the MDGs, go to: http://www.un.org/milleniumgoals/.

For more information on the Informal Interactive Hearings, go to http://www.un.org/ga/civilsocietyhearings/. 

 For more information, see FIRE’s webpage at: www.radiofeminista.net or write to oficina@radiofeminista.net.   For more information about the Women’s Media Pool, see the webpage at: www.womensmediapool.org or write to the WMP coordinator, María Suárez at: maria@radiofeminista.net.