The UN has finally decided to stand up for women! A decision to create a new agency for women was taken by the General Assembly on September14.
Our colleague Thalif Deen, IPS bureau chief in New York, was the first and only journalist to report it for the [...]]]>
A breakthrough for us as well? M. Sayagues
The UN has finally decided to stand up for women! A decision to create a new agency for women was taken by the General Assembly on September14.
Our colleague Thalif Deen, IPS bureau chief in New York, was the first and only journalist to report it for the first several hours.
But this blog is not to crow about our scoop.
I’m quite excited by the prospect of a new women’s agency with money and political power. No longer will the world’s feminists have to lobby from the outside to put their views on the table. They have now won admission to the high table.
Any one of those bright, articulate, activist women can emerge to lead the agency. The reality is likely to be less rosy. But chances are that, because it’s new, it will be less under the thumb of the old boy network.
You think I’m a romantic? What the hell, there is no harm in dreaming, is there? I like to think that there was no way that the General Assembly could have once again shelved the plan for a new women’s agency.
It’s 14 years since Beijing. All the small and big things that governments were forced to accept around women’s rights (CEDAW, MDG, etc.) made it impossible for any country to block the efforts of myriad initiatives (from small grassroots groups to reforms in government policies even if they started as mere tokenism) and to politicise the cause of gender equality.
I do see great hope in the increasing presence of women in politics – Liberia, Japan, India, wherever you look, even Iran (new ministers) and the Gulf (Saudi Arabia has made a few small concessions to women!).
Of course, there is a backlash too – more violence against women worldwide.
As IPS gender editor, I am sure we will keep track of the new agency as it will be a key player achieving the MDG3 goal – gender equality.
Well, hope springs eternal!
]]>Instead of striking a balance between ambition and realism, the MDGs have become [...]]]>
Instead of striking a balance between ambition and realism, the MDGs have become “money-metric and donor-centric”, “meaningless catch-all phrases.”
So says Jan Vandemoortele, a Belgian national, a United Nations senior official and one of the architects of the MDGs, in a thought-provoking article in the July issue of Development Policy Review of the Overseas Development Institute. (read it here)
Unrealistic goal? A crowded classroom in Guinea Bissau...
The author recalls that the MDGs were set up in 2000 as collective targets based on extrapolations of global trends. They are vague by definition; they are not one-size-fits-all.
Instead, one should look at countries’ historical backgrounds, natural endowments and specific problems, then adapt the Goals to each circumstance, as Mozambique, Cambodia and Ethiopia have done.
Otherwise, this puts undue pressure on the poorest countries and, given that most of these are in Africa, nurtures Afro-pessimism.
For example, the global target for education “is not realistic” for countries in conflict, he says.
True, targets do change. For example, water for all in 2015 morphed into the more feasible goal of halving the number of people without clean water.
Magic numbers
A mantra has evolved: if only there were more money and higher economic growth, the MDGs would be achieved. Who is fond of these “magic numbers”? Staff at global headquarters of aid organisations, says the author, because of their “excessive reliance on abstract concepts.” (he should know, with his long career as a top UN official).
..and their teacher. By M. Sayagues
Vandemoortele sees the MDG canon being usurped by interest groups to push their agendas or devalued “as a repackaged call for more foreign aid.”
Rather, the MDG should be a tool to examine disparities and inequities within countries. In his view, the poorest people continue to be excluded. Many of these are women. Without better sex-disaggregated data, the gender dimension of hunger, illiteracy, disease and poverty remains unexposed.
Most progress takes place among the better off, and inequality and inequity keep rising, says the author.
“The targets are often presented as a universal good that will not demand tough policy choices and hard trade-offs among social groups within a country,” he says.
The MDGs should usher in new thinking about inequalities if they are not to miss the point
What do you think? Send us your views.
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