E. Account of proceedings
Progress reports on the implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action (agenda item 3)
29. ECA, through the African Centre for Women (ACW) was mandated to follow up and support implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action and report to the United Nations Secretariat. The Report by African Governments that was prepared by ACW as one of the working document of the Sixth African Regional Conference on Women was a synthesis of the National Reports evaluating implementation that were received from member States.
30. The summary of the Synthesis was presented by Her Excellency, Ms. Neziha Zarrouk, Minister in Charge of Women and Family Affairs. Thirty-four of the 43 National Reports that ACW received before October 31 1999 were based on National Plans of Action. The thirty reports showed, furthermore, that 20 countries had entrusted the responsibility of implementing relevant policies and the Plan of Action to a Ministry in charge of Women Affairs. Five other countries had given this responsibility to a Ministry in charge of Social Affairs and Women Affairs, or Health, etc. or to a technical "Division", while 3 countries had delegated the task to a Bureau in charge of Women Affairs. Four countries had a structure called a "Committee", "Commission" or "Council". The remaining country reports were based on national programmes derived from the document, National Policy Guidelines for the Advancement of Women. These national programmes were implementing national policies for the advancement of women.
31. The percentage of national budgets allocated to financing the advancement of women remained very low and external funding comprised the most important component of the resources available for this task. This partly explained the choices governing the priority areas of individual States. In this regard, 33 countries selected the fight against poverty and promotion of health as priority areas, while 32 opted for education; 27 chose promotion of the fundamental rights of women as the priority area, while 16 focused on the economic empowerment of women as the critical area of concern. It was clear, nevertheless, that the four major priority areas were poverty, health, education and the promotion of women's human rights.
32. Several countries had adopted poverty-reduction policies, programmes and plans with specific initiatives aimed at alleviating the poverty of women through capacity building and the revision of laws and administrative practices that discriminate against women. The most noteworthy activities are related to promotion of women's access to credit. In the area of health, actions undertaken were intended to achieve the following: reduce maternal and infant mortality rates; reduce cases of FGM and other practices that were harmful to the health of women and girls; address the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic; increase access to primary health care; provide sexual and reproductive health services; support family planning efforts; and cater for the training of health workers. In the education sector, there had been significant advances, especially with regard to the education of girls and women and establishment of women-focused literacy programmes. In the area of human rights, governments had begun to revise legal texts and to carry out constitutional and legislative reforms.
33. Five years is a relatively short period in which to achieve sustainable changes. Thus, the achievements indicated in the National Reports constituted important steps in achieving gender equality. In a number of countries, there had been specific constraints that had impeded these efforts. They included inadequate allocation of human, technical and financial resources to the national mechanisms in charge of women affairs; the low status accorded to mechanisms in charge of women's advancement; negative beliefs and practices towards women; societal resistance to the very concept of equality between men and women; lack of personnel trained in gender analysis; under-involvement of certain national actors; conflicts and social unrest; difficulty in co-ordinating the activities of various sectors; existence of a multitude of sectoral plans of action and lack of harmonisation of these plans with the National Plan of Action; lack of data disaggregated by sex; the devastating impact of structural adjustment policies on the most vulnerable social groups, especially women; lack of enforcement of legislation and regulations; the non-existence or weakness of mechanisms responsible for follow up and evaluation; and strong dependence on external finance for implementing the National Plans of Action.
34. Popular culture remained stereotyped although there had been some progress in sensitising the public through the media on this drawback. NGOs had also been active in sensitisation and advocacy activities aimed at eradicating cultural practices that hinder the advancement of women and girl children. To ensure improved implementation of National Plans of Action, it was necessary to define precisely the mandate and the framework of the structural mechanisms for promoting women's concerns. It was also vital to provide adequate human and financial resources and create a sustainable project and programme financing system. In addition, the gender perspective should be integrated into national planning at the levels of policy, projects and programmes and in budgetary allocations. Governments should also enforce laws and follow up and evaluate the projects and programmes that are under National Plans of Action. Furthermore, governments should recognise the need for improved communication among different partners and harmonise their activities. Lastly, all African countries should ratify the international legal instruments concerning women and incorporate these in national legislation. Particularly, they should apply the quota system as recommended by the United Nations to achieve more female representation in decision-making positions.
35. The report presented by the NGO representative Ms. Gladys M. Mutukwa, Chairperson of WILDAF, was the result of consultations by a Taskforce comprising eight regional NGOs from 40 African countries. She regretted that many NGOs had not been able to participate due to financial constraints. However, since NGOs were participating as equal partners at the conference for the first time, she called on all the representatives to participate actively in all fora. The NGO report highlighted the trends over the five-year period since Dakar and Beijing, the obstacles faced and the major recommendations for the way forward. It examined these issues in relation to each of the 12 critical areas of concern. The report noted that the global trade and economic reforms were not people-centred and that this was leading to increased impoverishment and disempowerment of women. It expressed concern about the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the rate at which it conti5nued to affect women. It also pointed out that environmental impact assessments of rapid industrialisation were overlooking specific effects on the biological, social and cultural wellbeing of women. In addition, misappropriation and mismanagement of funds were reinforcing the marginalization of Africa in general and its women in particular.
36. Despite these shortcomings, NGOs observed that the progress made constitutes an era of hope for the advancement of women. Although the images of women in popular culture remain stereotyped, there has been some progress in correcting this drawback through the media. The NGOs expressed the urgent need to strengthen national capacities to accelerate the implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms through adequate constitutional, legislative and financial provisions.
37. Given that the Platforms for Action aspired to the total eradication of all forms of discrimination against women in all spheres of life, OAU reaffirmed its awareness of the important role and contribution of women to the stability, progress and development of Africa. Further, OAU noted that women's full and effective participation on the basis of equality was a precondition for durable peace and stability. Its assessment of achievements in contributing to the improved status of women was pegged to specific areas of the Platforms for Action. In the economic arena, the organisation's efforts had led to the signing of the Abuja Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community. Article 75 of the Treaty called for a more active role for women in continental processes. The organisation's declarations, such as the Declaration on the AIDS Epidemic in Africa, reflected concerns in the area of health. In the sphere of education, it had hosted the Conference on the Empowerment of Women through Functional Literacy. OAU's strategy for the way forward included seeking better co-ordination among the various actors and stakeholders through consultative dialogue. In this way, their respective roles could be mapped out clearly.
38. The African Development Bank's activities in supporting the implementation of the Beijing PFA focus on the following areas: increasing the resources allocated for the elimination of absolute poverty; supporting other financial institutions that serve low income, small scale, and micro-scale women entrepreneurs and producers; increasing the funding for the education and training needs of girls and women; revising policies, procedures and staffing to ensure that investments and programmes will benefit women.
39. The African Development Fund's Lending Policy and guidelines required the Bank to have a gender perspective in all its policies and programmes in order to facilitate a central role for women in economic activities. Furthermore, the Bank had adopted the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment procedure (CPIA), through which women's empowerment constitutes an element in assessing which regional member countries should qualify for specific financial resources. Thus far, the ADB had funded several projects in the areas of poverty, education, and training, which had directly benefited women. In this regard, it was noted that the objective of the African Development Fund Micro-Finance Initiative for Africa (also known as the AMINA Programme) was to deliver an appropriate range of financial services to micro-entrepreneurs. AMINA had provided support to over 36 NGOs that deliver savings and credit services. Most of these NGOs had between 40 and 100 per cent of their loan portfolio entirely devoted to women in rural and urban areas, with the clear objective of improving their quality of life and promoting their economic empowerment.
40. At the institutional level, it was reported that the Bank had a gender-responsive Human Resource Development Policy, the objective of which was to enhance the participation of women staff members in the senior positions of the Bank. To achieve this objective, the Bank had institutionalised transparent criteria for staff recruitment, appointment and promotion of women to strategic decision-making positions.
41. In adopting the Dakar PFA, African member States also adopted the recommendation to formulate a systematic implementation plan that would have a time frame, a set of responsibilities and an appropriate budget. Given these demands, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) undertook the necessary follow-up work on the implementation process by organising subregional meetings. These meetings gave an opportunity to provide technical assistance to a broad spectrum of participants who included government ministers and representatives of national co-ordinating NGOs, as well as Members of Parliament and representatives of UN agencies. One of the important tools that was used in the meetings was ECA's Suggested Outline for a National Action Plan.
42. To commemorate its fortieth anniversary, ECA organised an International Conference on "African Women and Economic Development: Investing in our Future" in April 1998. Several commitments were made at the meeting. These included the establishment of the African Women Committee on Peace and Development and the Fund for African Women's Development. In addition, representatives of specific institutions and organisations that attended the conference agreed to extend their partnerships with government as a basis for achieving gender-sensitive review of public expenditure, national accounting systems that value the work of women, and telecentres for rural women.
43. In ECA's vision, Africa's development prospects and the advancement of women were inseparable. Thus, within the organisation, achieving gender equality started with the promotion of gender parity at the decision-making level, when 40 per cent of the managerial positions were filled by women, between 1997 and 1998. At the level of programmes, gender was viewed as a crosscutting issue that should be integrated in all the substantive work of the Commission.
44. The Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women chaired the session on the reports from UN agencies. Representatives from the following organisations gave an account of the highlights of their agency's respective areas of focus, and their collaborative efforts towards the implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action: UNDP, UNIFEM, UNFPA, UNHCR and WFP; ILO, UNICEF and FAO; IOM, WHO, World Bank and UNCHS (Habitat). Their areas of focus in implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action were wide ranging. However, the agencies were able to outline their achievements to date, point out the constraints and challenges they had been facing, and indicate their strategic directions for the future.
45. UNDP's focus included promoting gender balance and providing guidelines on gender mainstreaming while UNIFEM's concerns targeted increased economic security for women, and engendered governance, peace building and conflict resolution. UNFPA's policies had been revised to take gender dimensions into account in the organisation's country programmes. This approach had made it possible for UNFPA to concentrate on the following areas: providing assistance on the collection of gender-disaggregated data; working with NGOs to address harmful traditional practices that affect women and girls; and assisting governments to include gender analysis in formulating population policies. The mandate of UNHCR covered protection and promotion of the rights of refugees as well as the promotion of gender equality and equity. Eighty per cent of WFP's food relief is channelled to women as part of its main mandate of using food aid to promote development.
46. ILO recognised that economic globalisation and structural adjustment programmes had affected women's participation in the labour force. In response to this, the organisation's key concerns included preparing women for employment in the formal sector; initiating programmes to address the impact of economic globalisation and economic reform on women workers; and developing a multifaceted approach that involves education and human/ institutional capacity building. The strategies used by UNICEF were directed at the education of girls; health in relation to girls and women; and capacity building. FAO's mandate was to support sustainable development in the agricultural sector. It offered a special programme on food security that gave security to rural women. In the area of education and training, the organisation's goals included improving agricultural extension services by increasing the number of women recipients and of agricultural extension workers.
47. IOM's mandate and range of programmes were intended to support immigrants, displaced persons and disaster victims and promote recognition of their human rights. The organisation also had a programme for repatriating skilled African men and women to their home countries. For the WHO, the priority areas included maternal and mental health, harmful traditional practices and HIV/AIDS. The economic empowerment of women was a central issue for the World Bank. This accounted for the Bank's emphasis on the strategy of investing in women's economic activities. The primary focus area of UNCHS was to provide assistance in urban development and management to ensure that the benefits of economic growth would spread equitably in relation to policy support to national governments and local authorities, housing, and services.
48. The main achievements of the agencies' efforts included supporting activities related to gender mainstreaming and capacity strengthening of gender machineries; economic empowerment of women at the grassroots level; production of national human development reports (UNDP); functional literacy and numeracy skills; mechanisms to protect women and children from violence (UNHCR); dissemination of the PFA documents; provision of technical advice to governments; establishment of regional networks such as WAMNET; formation of alliances and coalitions among women leaders and parliamentarians (UNIFEM); access to reproductive health information and family planning services (UNFPA); advocacy strategies (UNICEF).
49. Given the challenges that faced implementation of the Platforms, participants recommended the following strategies. First, co-operation between governments, NGOs, civil society and UN agencies should be strengthened; second, UNDP should continue its programme on poverty alleviation while the World Bank should assist women in the areas of micro-credit; and third, funds derived from debt cancellation should be channelled to UNIFEM to finance gender-mainstreaming programmes.
