Closing Statement
By
Wariaru Mbugua

Office of the Special Adviser
On Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women
United Nations, New York

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
14 October 2004

Madam Chairperson
Your Excellencies
Honorable Ministers
Distinguished Delegates
Colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, I wish to express my thanks for the opportunity to make a statement at the closing session of a very successful 7th African Regional Conference for Women reviewing the ten year implementation of the Dakar and the Beijing Platforms for action. I wish to thank the Government and the people of Ethiopia, for looking after us so well and making us feel welcome in every way. Our sincere gratitude goes to Mr. Amoako, Executive Secretary of ECA, for facilitating this conference and for enabling joint sessions with the Fourth Africa Development Forum as well as the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa.

We are all indebted to Ms. Josephine Ouedraogo, the Director of the African Center for Gender and Development at the ECA, and her team, for their tireless efforts in catering to so many of our needs so that we can accomplish what we came to do here. The preparation, organization, management and coordination of all the various processes of a conference of this magnitude is no easy task. We commend your leadership and the commitment of your entire staff.

Madam Chairperson.

I do not wish to repeat what so many have said so eloquently at this conference in setting the agenda to promote the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women in Africa. Achievements over the ten years since the Dakar and the Beijing Platforms for Action were adopted have been lauded, gaps have been identified and the lessons we have learned have been shared and discussed.

But there are new aspects of this conference which seem to signal that in order to achieve gender equality in Africa, all of us- that is governments, the civil society and the development partners- recognize that we must cease doing things in the usual manner. Allow me to make two or three observations to underscore this point.

Firstly, this conference has focused a great deal on performance, but with one major difference. Participants have underscored the intrinsic value of assessing ourselves not to meet someone else’s standards or conditionalities, but rather to speed up the progress towards gender equality for the women of Africa.

Secondly, the imperative to develop and apply credible homegrown solutions that are context- specific was mentioned again and again. Despite initial skepticism., the NEPAD framework and the Africa Peer Review Mechanism initiated by Africa leaders in response to the unique concerns of the African continent have now become an integral part of our development efforts. In the same vein, we now have the Africa Gender and Development Index and the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Both these instruments have been developed in response to concerns about measuring impact on gender mainstreaming, harmonizing reporting formats, avoiding duplication of interventions, stimulating collection of new types of data and ensuring sex-dissagregation of all data, and benchmarking our progress. These instruments should now become central to all our work in the region. In particular, it is my opinion that the AGDI and the Protocol will enable us to systematically mainstream gender concerns in the Millennium Development Goals and in the National Poverty Alleviation Strategies.

Thirdly, participants emphasized that current paradigms of partnerships in development must change. This is an issue that the UN Secretary General Mr. Kofi Anan has stressed again and again to both government and development partners. Strengthening the national institutional mechanisms responsible for promoting gender equality and the advancement of women, by allocating more resources commensurate with their mandates is therefore essential and necessary. Likewis,e tapping local expertise on gender issues in the conceptualization, design and implementation of programmes, is crucial to ensure relevance and sustainability.

And fourthly, there was recognition that, while clearly there is a need to continue with many of the basic strategies to reverse trends such as the feminization of poverty and to halt the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is also important to put in place second and third generation strategies. For example, in areas such as those related to trade and information and communication technologies, we need to make strategic jumps to ensure that women derive immediate benefits. Such strategies should enable us to consolidate achievements already reached, ensure the equal participation of women in fast moving global processes, but more importantly, challenge prevailing false assumptions that strategies for empowerment of women in Africa must be contained only within a very narrow range.

Madam Chairperson,

In her opening remarks, Ambassador Mwongela posed the following question: “ What position will African women take during next year’s global meeting on the ten year review and appraisal of the Beijing Platform of Action?” This is not an idle question. It bears keeping in mind that much of what we have discussed here and the recommendations that we have made are tinted by the fact that Africa today is struggling to extricate itself from highly unequal and disadvantaged relations with the rest of the world. In this respect, let us remember that even as we focus our energies on addressing national and regional gender concerns, we must be vigilant so as to remain actively and critically engaged in the global debates that have the potential to negate the gains that we have so painstakingly achieved, or hinder the new initiatives that we wish to undertake.

As African women move forward to the global meeting in March next year, it is useful to keep in mind the challenges and the pitfalls ahead. As Ambassador Mwongela stated, Africa’s agenda on the girl child remains pivotal to the empowerment of women and the promotion of gender equality in Africa. With Africa experiencing the highest rates in the world of HIV infection among women and girls, highest levels of infant, child and maternal mortality, the protection and the promotion of the reproductive health and rights of women continues to be a cornerstone for securing gender equality in Africa. This agenda is reflected in the Dakar Platform for Action, the ICPD and ICP+5 and is strongly reinforced in the Protocol on the Rights of Women. Affirmative action to increase representation of women in the political and other decision-making processes is also still a valid and necessary strategy.

For Africa, these are complex issues because of the heterogeneity of African societies. Therefore, in global debates, they should not be made simplistic or be reduced to a single denominator. For example the agenda on the girl child is not only about access to universal primary education: it includes freedom from violence and protection from harmful practices, access to information and so forth. Similarly, reproductive health should not be reduced to issues related to abortion. Affirmative action- whose legality is being challenged in court in some developed countries- is about addressing structural gender inequities and inequalities that have been perpetuated for generations. Given the rigid and entrenched gender systems prevailing in many African countries, the transformative power of affirmative action has been proven time and time again.

Madam chair,

These are but a few illustrations that as we go forward to the global meeting in New York next year in March, there is a lot at stake. The agenda that we have set here belongs to the women of Africa whom every one of us here has the privilege to represent and to serve. Do we have the right to make compromises and trade-offs?

Every trade-off we make denies women opportunities, services, and resources.Worse, it may very well condemn them to death.

Our role is to ensure that this does not happen, neither at national, regional nor at the global levels. In this regard, we have clear and fresh footprints to follow. Eminent African women in our midst, as well as those not here such as Graca Machel and Wangari Mathai whose leadership is impacting regional and global development processes, have demonstrated the incredible dividends that men and women in our societies can reap from the steadfastness of our convictions that gender equality and the empowerment of women in Africa is not negotiable. We pay tribute to them for their courage, their honesty and the sacrifices that they have made. We also thank them for giving us strong shoulders to stand on so that we can reach even further. I am sure you will agree with me that we cannot- indeed we dare not- let them down.

Madame Chairperson,

In conclusion, let me congratulate you and the members of your Bureau for taking on the leadership for the Africa regional women’s agenda emanating from this conference. Your election and that of your team is richly deserved.

I look forward to seeing many of you in New York in March 2005. At that time, you will meet with yet another Africa woman leader. Ms. Rachel Manyanja from Uganda who has been appointed by the UN Secretary General as the new Assistant Secretary General for Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women.

For now, I wish you all a safe journey back home.
Thank you for your attention.