UNRISD Announces the preparation of a flagship report onGender and development: 10 years after Beijing

The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) is
preparing a research-based policy report on gender and development, to
be launched in March 2005 at the 49th Session of the Commission on the
Status of Women, in order to shed light on some of the critical policy
Issues highlighted in the Beijing Platform for Action.

The struggle for gender equality and women’s rights in the last decade
Constituted a significant conjuncture marked by the fall of communism in
Eastern and Central Europe, the transition from authoritarian regimes in
many parts of Latin America and Africa, supportive administrations in
power in industrialized countries, and broader shifts in the
international policy agenda underlining the significance of democracy
and rights for the development process. Progress at the national level
was also facilitated by a series of major UN conferences where, despite
persistent opposition from conservative forces, women’s rights advocates
were able to make a significant impact on the emerging policy documents.

The Beijing Platform for Action has now been approved by a majority of
States. In many countries new laws give recognition to women’s rights in
critical areas such as divorce, child custody, domestic violence, and
reproductive rights. However success on this front has not been matched
by an improvement in the quality of life of the majority and in the
achievement of greater social justice. Conservatives, the world over,
continue to challenge international human rights norms and standards
pertaining to women's rights and human rights agendas are weakened by
the current global crisis occasioned by terrorism, militarism and war.
Gains made in women’s rights remain as fragile as the democratic
institutions and procedures that should give them legitimacy and
protection.

To reflect on challenges such as these, UNRISD is preparing a report
Examining some of the serious and controversial issues that currently
preoccupy a wide range of actors and thinkers in the field of gender and
development, drawing on and re-thinking recent scholarship on those
issues. The report will form the Institute’s contribution to the
"Beijing Plus Ten" assessment which is to take place in March 2005.

The UNRISD report will examine the following four broad areas of
institutional and policy reform.

The changing political economy of development: This section will take
stock of what is known to date regarding the gender implications and
impacts of different economic policy regimes and specific policy
components, and, on that basis, will draw some lessons for policy
formulation. It will trace and explain the substantial changes in the
nature of "development policy", from a Keynesian-type managed approach
to one focusing on structural adjustment and then to a more full-blown

neo-liberal approach, and evaluate the results of the changing policy
regimes and development strategies from a gender perspective.

• Livelihoods, entitlements and social policy: This section will
provide an analysis of how and why the liberalization agenda has taken
root in different regions and how its different elements have evolved
since the early 1980s. To provide a grounded analysis of how
liberalization policies are shaping people's well-being and security in
gender differentiated ways, it will focus on the changing nature of
labour markets as well as men's and women's access to critical assets,
welfare services (especially health and education, care), state
transfers (pensions, family allowances), and remittances from migrants.

• Governance, democratization and civil society: One of the distinct
and positive features of the last two decades has been women's greater
political visibility—as individuals and as a social group—in both formal
political institutions and in civil society. This section of the report
will examine some of the complex issues raised with respect to women's
political mobilization (and their capacity to politicize issues of
concern to them), their representation in political institutions, and
their effectiveness in triggering better responsiveness and
accountability from decision makers at different levels.

• Armed conflict, violence and social change: This section of the
report will reflect on issues of violence and insecurity in the context
of militarism and war from a gender perspective. It will examine in
particular the extent to which women have been able to articulate and
promote their interests in post-conflict processes of reconstruction,
governance reform and justice, and how abuses of women's rights in the
context of armed conflict have provided a platform for women's rights
advocates and their allies to bring about international legal and
institutional changes.

UNRISD Web site:
www.unrisd.org/research/gender/report.