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ACTUAL E-NEWS | Women's section | Children's section | Save dates and links | Organigram | ||||||
Forward
by WWSF Executive Director |
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WWSF staff and volunteers join me in sharing with you our first quarterly electronic Newsletter, a regular update of our global empowerment programs for rural women, children and NGOs. Purpose: to stay connected with our ever growing network of relevant organizations and grassroots partners and to invite you to join us for a free flowing exchange of ideas and information. Our
Mission |
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From left to right: Linda, Elly, Evelyne and Laure |
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| WWSF was founded in 1991 on the fact that women and children represent almost 75% of the world’s population and as the largest constituency have almost nothing to say in shaping the political and economic space in which they live. We are working to help change this situation. Women’s and children’s rights have been recognized and guaranteed in all international human rights instruments, notably the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as in other international and regional conventions and covenants relating to the rights of women and children as being inalienable, interdependent and indivisible human right. | |||||||||||
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10-Year
Review Conference - Beijing Platform for Action Back from New York, where WWSF Board Members attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 28.02 –11.03.2005), we can share that the conclusion stated the need for governments to do more to achieve gender equality and facilitate the advancement of women. “Worldwide consensus has built around the idea that empowering women is the most effective tool for development and poverty reduction, and that remaining obstacles to gender equality can be overcome,” said Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women. |
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Delegates discussed best practices and shared experiences and recommended innovative ways of promoting gender equality that ranged from appointing high-level commissioners on gender issues and establishing inter-departmental taskforces, to organizing women’s caucuses and campaigns to encourage greater participation in decision-making, and many more. The Political Declaration established a strong link between the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals MDGs. Throughout the CSW, governments recognized that the MDGs, the time bound targets for eradicating poverty and implementing the Millennium Declaration, cannot be achieved without advancing the human rights and empowerment of all women in all their diversity. Ten years after the 4th UN World Conference on Women, the review attended by thousands of NGOs called attention to the many areas where women’s equality is still not a reality – continuing high rates of violence against women in all parts of the world, increasing incidence of HIV/AIDS among women, gender inequality in employment, lack of reproductive health rights and a lack of equal access under the law to land and property, to name a few. For further information on the Ten-Year Review and Appraisal, visit http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/Review/ |
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