Press Release No. 09/1997

ECA Gender Policy Under The Spotlight This Week

ADDIS ABABA, 22 April 1997 -- Experts will take a long hard look this week at the issue of gender and development -- one of two key themes that cut across programme lines at the UN Economic Commission for African (UNECA) -- when they gather here for the 18th meeting of the Africa Regional Coordinating Committee for the Integration of Women in Development (ARCC).

ARCC, established in 1979 by the ECA Conference of Ministers, is an inter-governmental policy-making body that focuses on the advancement of women. As such, it is the political arm of the ECA's gender programme, which is implemented by the African Centre for Women (ACW). ARCC meets annually to review the work of the Centre, and to provide it with orientation and guidance.

The three-day consultation (24-26 April) will preside over a detailed work programme, and will prepare recommendations for the 32nd session of the Commission and 23rd meeting of the ECA Conference of Ministers responsible for economic and social development and planning (5-8 May).

Representatives of ARCC's 20 member countries and ACW staff will review ACW's programme work between April 1996 and April 1997; discuss follow-up strategies towards implementing the Dakar and Beijing Platforms of Action; consider the report on the Commission on the Status of Women (which highlights developments in the advancement of women in the areas of Education and Training of Women, Women and the Economy, Women in decision-making and Women and the Environment); and assess the ARCC itself, with a view to improving its efficiency, and making recommendations on its structure in view of the ECA's renewal.

According to Josephine Ouedraogo, the upgraded gender division's new chief, the meeting represents a watershed in the evolution of women and development programming at the ECA and in Africa. "It provides a singular opportunity to review the role of ARCC in the context of growing recognition that gender issues are cross-cutting and as such must be mainstreamed into all development activities for sustainable results," says Ouedraogo.

Josephine Ouedraogo, one of several new division chief, is a national of Burkina Faso whose credits include: Minister of Family Development and National Solidarity where she helped formulate the country's first Family Code (1984-87); Coordinator of the Sub-Saharan Project on Women and Health for the Pan-African Development Institute (1989-92); and most recently Director-General for International Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"In its new directions", she adds, "ECA will be among the pioneers who are incorporating gender concerns in their entire work programme rather than isolating women in development activities as a separate programme."

Among items to be considered will be a progress report on Economic Empowerment Activities, in the context of an Accra Declaration and Plan which emerged from a major ECA conference in Ghana in 1996.

Another burning issue on the agenda is that of Women and the Peace Process, drawing on the declaration and action plan of a landmark Pan-African Women's Conference held in Kigali, Rwanda in March this year. Also on the table for consideration by ARCC in the wake of an African Women's Leadership Forum meeting in South Africa last November, is a recommendation for the creation of an African Women's Committee on Peace.

If accepted by ARCC, the idea of such a Committee will be presented to the Conference of Ministers for endorsement.

In the wake of the Fifth African Regional Conference on Women (Dakar November 1994 ) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing September 1995), Zimbabwe and Senegal have been asked to present to the ARCC meeting their national plans of action (NPAs). African countries had received substantial technical advice from ACW on how to prepare their NPAs, and a technical discussion on the two plans will take place.

By the end of the ARCC meeting, the ACW hopes to have a clear picture of progress made in formulating viable NPAs and their state of implementation since Dakar and Beijing.

It should also have a clear understanding of the new partnership it should forge with ARCC in light of ECA's new programme of activities for the It should also have a clear understanding of the new partnership it should forge with ARCC in light of ECA's new programme of activities for the implementation of the regional and global Platform for Action.

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