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Asia-Pacific NGO Forum quoted at the New York MDG Meeting

“The attainment of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) depends on women’s empowerment and gender equality as spelled out in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discmrination Against Women (CEDAW).”

This was the core message proposed by participants to the meeting “Millennium Development Goals and Beijing Platform for Action: Challenges for the Year 2005,” held from 2 to 4 December in New York City. The declaration was adapted from the statement of the Asia-Pacific NGO Forum held from 30 June to 04 July 2004 in Thailand, chaired by Asia-Pacific Women’s Watch (APWW).

Co-organized by the UN Millennium Campaign, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the New York meeting was held to prepare non-governmental organizations for the global events that will take place in 2005, such as the Commission on the Status of Women’s (CSW) 10-year review of the BPfA, and the Heads of States Summit to assess progress made in the achievement of the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs, which will be held at the opening of the 60th session of the General Assembly.

Dr. Patricia ‘Tatti’ Licuanan, APWW Co-Chair, attended the December meeting on behalf of APWW.

Some participants spoke on the inadequacies of the MDGs’ targets and indicators relating to gender, women’s lack of participation in national and global MDGs processes, and exclusion of reproductive rights and employment issues. Others had concerns regarding forthcoming 2005 processes, such as the “overload” of agendas and frameworks from different international institutions, the lack of coherence, the preoccupation with the security agenda, the backlash against women’s rights, and lapses in dissemination of information to women activists.

Participants shared a wide range of regional and national-level experiences on implementing the BPfA, the Cairo Programme of Action, the MDGs and CEDAW, as well as other strategies and entry points for achieving gender equality and economic and social justice. Three working groups on (i) the national and local levels; (ii) Beijing+10 and the Commission on Status of Women 2005; (iii) the Global Call to Action Against Poverty then met for further discussion.

Important points raised by the working groups include:

build alliances with other social movements and non-traditional allies is essential;
work on Beijing and the MDGs should not ignore the macroeconomic context and Goal 8 agenda of trade, aid, debt;
the movement needs to involve youth;
the Beijing+10 outcome should have a strong message on the necessity of implementing CEDAW and the BPfA to achieve the MDGs;
the Millennium Campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (G-CAP) should come to feminist space, such as the AWID Forum and the CSW;
women’s organizations should continue using existing frameworks and exploit new ones to the extent that they are useful in mobilizing resources and gaining traction for gender equality;
and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty needs to be engendered and could have a positive impact for economic justice and women’s rights.

WEDO’s and other organizations’ proposal to link the Beijing Week of Action in March 2005 to the MDGs and the G-CAP received strong support. The national and local groups called for UNIFEM to further its role as disseminator of information. Many groups agreed to explore further collaboration with the Millennium Campaign.