Women with Disabilities

WIDE: Press Release: Time to change the EU: make trade and development work for womenโ€™s 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 EUโ€™s 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 worldโ€™s poor communities.

Barbara Specht (Advocacy Officer at WIDE): โ€œOur 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 womenโ€™s empowerment and gender mainstreaming in development cooperation and external relations. The European Commissionโ€™s 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): โ€œThe EU must increase resources allocated to gender equality and womenโ€™s 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 womenโ€™s 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 womenโ€™s 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 womenโ€™s 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

Thus, the EU Commission committed to work with the Member States on the elaboration on a โ€œEU Action Plan on Gender Equality and Womenโ€™s Empowerment in External Relations which was meant โ€œto 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€.

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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URL reference: http://www.awid.org/eng/Women-in-Action/Announcements2/WIDE-Press-Release-Time-to-change-the-EU-make-trade-and-development-work-for-women-s-rights!

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When: 7/2/2014

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