Women with Disabilities
WIDE: Press Release: Time to change the EU: make trade and development work for womenโs rights!
From 16 to 17 November, European Ministers of Defence, Development and Foreign Affairs gather in Brussels for the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) meeting. Key issues related to the EU Trade and Development Policies are important highlights of the two days gathering. WIDE, as a European feminist network of womenยดs organisations, development NGOs and gender advocates working on gender, trade and development issues, raises its concerns about EUโs trade and development policies and urges the ministers to make a shift from profit oriented strategies to socially beneficial policies that work for pro-development, environmentally sustainable and social and gender just outcomes.
The current EU Trade strategy as laid out in the EC communication Global Europe: Competing in the World puts its main emphasis on meeting EU business interests at the cost of socio-economic rights, sustainable development and gender equality objectives. As criticized by civil society actors, the Global Europe strategy threatens many of the worldโs poor communities.
Barbara Specht (Advocacy Officer at WIDE): โOur concerns have been reinforced in the context of the multiple crises. The food, financial, economic, climate and social crises provide evidence that the neo-liberal economic policies, including unfettered trade liberalisation and market opening have not worked to promote human well-being for all. These crises are to a large degree systemic and are strongly related to the liberalisation and deregulation policies of the last decades. It is thus high time to review the EUยดs Global Europe strategy and break with doing business-as-usual by calling for a swift conclusion of the Doha Round and of the bilateral free trade negotiations.โ
WIDE also reminds GAERC its commitment to improve aid effectiveness by promoting womenโs empowerment and gender mainstreaming in development cooperation and external relations. The European Commissionโs Gender Action Plan (GAP) has been drafted without participation and dialogue with the civil society. WIDE demands that adequate resources are allocated for GAP implementation, the exact date of approval of the plan is fixed and that Gender Action Plan is coherent with the EU policies on equal opportunities and trade.
Luisa Antolin (WIDE Advocacy Officer): โThe EU must increase resources allocated to gender equality and womenโs empowerment in external relations as well as establishing mechanisms for effective tracking of funds allocated to gender. I want to remind that the EU and the Member States are committed to reach 30% of total Overseas Development Aid (ODA) for gender equality and womenโs empowerment by 2015. The EU is far away from reaching this goal.โ
Additionally, ahead of the two crucial events in the coming months in relation to gender equality and womenโs rights โ the 30th anniversary of CEDAW and the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action โ the EU must put advancement of gender equality and womenโs empowerment as a key pillar of the future EU strategy of Policy Coherence. WIDE also urges the EU and the Member States to take Policy Coherence for Development approach addressing the relationships between gender, development and trade and to link the macro-economic perspective to the meso and micro angle in partner countries in the South.
Notes to the Editors
- โPost Lisbon Strategy, Aid Effectiveness and Policy Coherence for Development and EU commitments towards Gender Equality and Womenโs Rightsโ. On the 5th of November 2009, WIDE sent a letter to the Swedish Presidency, stating its concerns before the GAERC Meeting. You can download the letter from link below: http://62.149.193.10/wide/download/WIDE%20letter%20for%20GAERC%2016-17%20Nov%2009.pdf?id=1047
- The last report form DAC/OCDE on Aid in Support of Gender Equality and Womenโs Empowerment (2009) marks only 187 USD millions to actions, which has gender equality as โPrincipal objectiveโ out of 9793 USD millions allocated by the EC as Total Sector-allocable aid. The funding made available to support the integration of gender equality issues into development cooperation is insignificant when compared with the resources earmarked for other horizontal measures. Only 5% of the Development Cooperation Instrument funds for the thematic programme 'Investing in People' (2007-2013) are allocated to gender equality (57 million Euros out of 1 billion Euros). In addition, regional and country strategy papers do not give an overview of budget allocations to gender equality since gender is mentioned as a cross-cutting issue and thus has no specific financial allocation.
- EU Gender Action Plan: The GAERC Conclusions of the 15th of May 2007 invited the Commission to put into practice the Communication on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Development Cooperation, to be implemented between 2008-2013. The GAERC also calls the Commission and Member States to discuss about how to strengthen efforts and take concrete measures to improve gender equality, women's empowerment and gender mainstreaming in development cooperation in the framework of the new aid architecture established by the Paris Declaration and Monterrey Consensus, to improve aid effectiveness.
Thus, the EU Commission committed to work with the Member States on the elaboration on a โEU Action Plan on Gender Equality and Womenโs Empowerment in External Relations which was meant โto establish a common, practical and implementation-oriented EU approach on gender equality in external relations and by doing so, allow for more coherent and coordinated policies in related areas towards our partner countriesโ.
- WIDE is a European feminist network of womenโs organizations, development NGOs, gender specialists and womenโs rights activists. For more than 25 years, WIDE has dedicated itself to raising awareness, monitoring and influencing international economic and development policies and practices from a gender perspective, promoting womenโs rights as the basis for the development of a more just and democratic world order. Check-out http://www.wide-network.org
- Find out more about WIDE CEDAW +30 Campaign at http://www.awid.org/eng/www.cedaw30.wordpress.com
For more information, please contact: Luisa Antolin, WIDE: luisa@wide-network.org,, give a call on +32 2 545 90 75 from Monday till Friday
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When: 7/2/2014