By External Source
Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

“Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.”

On this occasion, IPS Inter Press Service is pleased to bring to it’s readers, opinions, views and perspectives of women leaders on the Covid19 crisis, the centrality of women’s contributions and the disproportionate burdens that women carry.

Credit: GGGI

By Frank Rijsberman, Ingvild Solvang and Bertha Wakisa Chiudza
SEOUL, Republic of Korea, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

As the global effort to address climate change has strengthened over the last few years, so has the realization that rising temperatures and climactic disruptions disproportionately impact women, particularly in developing countries, as they tend to be more dependent upon natural resources and are thus overrepresented in resource-intensive economic sectors. Furthermore, inherent in gender inequality are disadvantages for and discrimination against women in all facets of society, including in the economy and politics. Thus, it is unfortunate, yet perhaps unsurprising, that these structural disparities are mirrored in the negative effects of climate change. Therefore, if gender differences are not incorporated into climate change plans, women will be unable to access the co-benefits that arise from concerted climate action.

Thankfully, a rethinking of how to best address the climate crisisto reflect the reality of the situation on the ground has recently taken root. Empowering, educating, and directly engagingwomen has a direct effect on the development and implementation of “environmentally friendly decision making at household and national levels.” Therefore, it is not only beneficial but also essential for any holistic strategy designed to combat climate change to contain a strong component that addresses gender equality.

Fortunately, many countries and major international organizations are taking this realization to heart. For instance, the United Nations has prioritized gender in its climate change framework, including incorporating gender equality and women’s empowerment into Sustainable Development Goal 13, and unlocking the potential of gender equality as “an accelerator of sustainable development across all 17 SDGs.” Likewise, a number of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have brought gender to the forefront of their climate responses, with Mozambique being the first to develop a Climate Change Gender Action Plan back in 2010, and many others who have since followed.

The need for holistic yet specific approaches

In pursuing low-carbon, socially inclusive sustainable economic growth, one size does not fit all, therefore nations and the groups supporting them are cognizant of the need to tailor-make strategies and responses specific to the needs of local communities. The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) launched its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy 2021-2025 highlightingthe experiences of GGGI and its Members and Partners.

In its mission to support Members build “a low-carbon, resilient world of strong, inclusive, and sustainable growth,” GGGI has placed the ethos of “leaving no one behind” front and center to its green growth approach. As such, the new strategy is considered an essential part of the organization’s overall long-term strategy to achieve poverty eradication, social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and economic growth in its Member and Partner countries and in alignment with SDGs and human rights.

At its core, the strategy seeks to help bring about inclusive low carbon growth that creates better healthcare outcomes andempowers women and indigenous peoples by creating decent green jobs in both the formal and informal economic sectors, as well as by expanding access to services in communities that have been historically underserved or locked out of the formal economy. On the ground, this means ramping up green investment and increasing the societal and political participation of women and marginalized groups in areas that most affect them in developing countries, such as agriculture, forests, waste management, transport, green buildings, and renewable energy.

Innovative initiatives

More specifically on the issue of renewable energy –an essential component to any climate strategy –the sector contains great potential in terms of job creation and growth and is thus an area ripe for facilitating the participation of women. As the renewable energy sector emerges and expands in developing countries, governments are taking steps to decrease the heretofore male dominated nature of it and create entry points for women along the energy value chain.

In Rwanda, for example, the government has developed an energy policy that emphasizes STEM education and training for women. Furthermore, with support from GGGI, Rwanda has developed a comprehensive infrastructure gender mainstreaming strategy that aims to achieve “the equal participation of women and men in the sector by enhancing job opportunities and strengthening the capacities of infrastructure developers to address gender equality.” There are concrete targets involved as well. In the near term, Rwanda intends to increase female labor force participation in government utility groups to 30 percent. Perhaps more significantly, the country is working toward achieving universal access to electricity by 2024. This will have positive knock-on effects for the female population as the rural electrification rate in Rwanda is currently very low, and women are disproportionately represented in the rural economy. Bringing electricity to rural areas creates more opportunity for women in terms of education and jobs, including jobs in the renewable energy sector that will power that rural electrification effort. Another sector that is part and parcel to fighting climate change, as well as to providing overall environmental health and wellbeing, is waste management.

This is particularly true in developing countries where sometimes subpar sanitation systems and waste removal processes entail burning petroleum products as well as contribute to poor health outcomes. Yet, the sector also often provides important sources of income for lower-skilled and/or informal economy workers, which unfortunately includes a lot of women. These factors make sustainable interventions in this sector an important component in the intersection between climate justice and gender equality.

In Lao PDR, which has an informal economy of waste pickers who perform collection duties for recyclables, a concerted effort is underway to formalize the waste management sector and capitalize on opportunities to turn waste into resources. As part of its Green Cities Program, GGGI has identified waste management as a priority area in Lao PDR and is supporting the country’s work to “adopt a paradigm change from a waste management to a resource management approach.” GGGI is working with waste picker groups in the informal economy –workers who lack job security and health and safety protections –to integrate them into the mainstream collection service and waste recycling industry and, more broadly, to transform the sector to lead to improved workers’ benefits, health, and safety. This approach, then, helps set Laos on an inclusive green growth pathway by developing eco-friendly and renewable sources of nutrients for crops and the like, while also growing economic opportunities for women and other marginalized groups that have had to cope with the struggles of living in the informal labor force. Organizing the informal waste sector will have the benefit of helping to de-marginalize these workers and bring them some of the protections and rights afforded to those in the formal economy.

Inclusivity as a key to green growth

These two different examples in two different parts of the world, help illustrate that meaningful climate action must be taken by concurrently addressing gender disparities and inequalities. Green growth policies and approaches that do not address gender equality and inclusion can have the effect of being counter-productive or, at best, further entrenching the status quo of large segments of society prevented from access to the benefits of growth. Therefore, firm commitments and deliberate strategies are required to aggressively tackle gender disparities and inequalities in the context of climate action. This is what GGGI and its Members are doing with its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy. Maximizing social co-benefits and inclusion via GGGI’s programmatic work to combat climate change and grow economies in developing countries helps ensure that gender equality is a “pre-requisite for the green growth transformation.”

The authors : Frank Rijsberman, Director-General ; Ingvild Solvang, Deputy Director and Head of Climate Action and Inclusive Development; Bertha Wakisa Chiudza, Senior Gender and Social Development Specialist, Global Green Growth Institute

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

UN Women announced the theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2021 (IWD 2021) as, “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” The theme celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UN Women

By Maria Jose Moreno Ruiz
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

To commemorate International Women’s Day, the United Nations has called for “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 World,” as the day coincides with the dark week when WHO declared the virus a global pandemic.

A year later, the virus has laid bare the stark gender inequality that continues to shape our world. Despite being at the forefront of COVID-19 response, women – particularly those in economic hardships and from marginalized racial and ethnic groups – have borne the brunt of this crisis.

On this day, we must reflect on why this happened and why it is absolutely critical for women and girls – in all their diversity – to have an equal voice and co-lead in rebuilding after COVID-19.

Recent Oxfam research revealed that, while COVID-19 lockdowns have generally increased women’s and men’s unpaid care workload, it was women who continued to do the bulk of this work.

The report also found that the crisis has forced women to make impossible choices – between abandoning paid employment and care, even when this meant risking facing further destitution.

Women living in poverty, single mothers, and essential and informal workers, many belonging to discriminated against racial and ethnic groups, have been pushed furthest to the margins.

As a result, it is not surprising that women reported feeling more anxious, depressed, overworked or ill because of the increased unpaid work, loss of income and other hardships during this period.

Violence against women also soared in many countries during lockdowns, with 243 millions of women and girls reporting sexual, physical and emotional violence during the pandemic.

Moreover, sexual and reproductive health and services were side-lined during the pandemic. Access to modern contraception, safe delivery or abortion has been reduced.

Over the coming 5 years, it is estimated that 2.5 million girls will also be forced into early marriage due to poverty, affecting their overall development and exposing them more to unwanted, and in many cases physically dangerous, pregnancies and further gender-based violence from intimate partners who are often older and hold more power in the relationships.

These realities were not born just last year but are the result of longstanding systemic practices, cultural values, patriarchal norms, and political decisions that perpetuated inequality and discrimination.

Maria Jose Moreno Ruiz

Diverse and equal representation of all genders in decision-making is paramount to any healthy functioning society and sustainable economy. Collective problem-solving is even more essential at this critical post-pandemic juncture. As we brace for the second year of the Coronavirus, we face common global challenges.

How are we going to deal with the unrest caused by the COVID-19 economic fallout that has exponentially deepened inequalities and pushed millions, particularly women and marginalized racial and ethnic groups to poverty and hunger?

How can we ensure everyone, not just rich nations and the privileged few, get the vaccine, so we can end this terrible disease? How can we rebuild a greener and more sustainable world and heal our beaten planet?

To address these challenges, we need the talent of all people. We need diverse perspectives, knowledge, experiences, and commitment to be valued equally, if we are to shape the way forward and rebuild a world that works for all and not just the privileged few.

For example, we want women who have been excluded from accessing land, to help propose new ways forward for land management. We would like women who migrate as domestic workers or nurses, to participate in re-imagining our national and global care systems. Without this diversity we will not be able to confront the complex global dilemmas ahead of us.

Our post-COVID-29 world will look very different if we turn this crisis into an opportunity to engage everyone, regardless of their class, race, religion, or sexual orientation – in our collective spaces at all levels: at presidencies, religious establishments, civil society organizations, boards, academic institutions or neighbour associations. Only together, we can brave COVID-19 and rebuild a more just world.

But sadly, the reality is far from this picture because many of our institutional machineries are broken and bankrupt. The protection of the common good is hitting new lows, with more citizens losing trust in their leaders to address their problems and concerns.

Many politicians appear regularly in our news feed mishandling facts or public resources, bending to suit big corporates interests, and promoting xenophobia and misogyny.

In many cases, politics has become morally and functionally compromised, since those most impacted by policies – the poorest, women and racial and ethnic minorities above all – are often excluded from decision making tables.

We have seen how in Yemen, as in other post-conflict contexts, how women have been largely excluded from formal peace talks despite their courageous participation in peace building at the local level.

We have observed how populist regimes around the world have blatantly disregarded women’s rights, and perpetuated a disrespectful rhetoric around migrants, LGBTQI+ communities, ethnic, racial and religious minorities. We have seen women farmers who lost everything to climate-fuelled events have no say in what rich nations decide at Climate Summits.

Today, we are at a critical crossroad. We have a moral choice to make. Are we going to protect the current broken global economic and social systems that favour the wealthy and privileged? Will we be able to centre our values and practices around equality and care for all people or only a few?

The issues we face together could not be more urgent, and only the collective intelligence, heart and experiences of our humanity can solve them. I strongly believe that we can and will brave COVID-19 and rebuild a better world if we focus our efforts towards ensuring everyone has a voice.

Only by fighting for universal human rights and guaranteeing equal and diverse representation of all genders is at the heart of any COVID-19 recovery, we can rebuild better and transform our societies. Only then, on International Women’s Day, we can truly celebrate all people living with dignity and freedom.

The author is Gender Justice Director at Oxfam International

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Mar 7 2021 (IPS)

Access to an inclusive quality education is a universal human right. When the inherent right to a good education is ignored or denied, the consequences are severe. For a girl in country of conflict or forced displacement, the impact is brutally multiplied.

Yasmine Sherif

Such is the level of discrimination that, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, refugee girls are only half as likely to be enrolled in secondary school as boys. There is a two in three chance girls in crisis settings won’t even start secondary school. At primary level girls in crisis settings are two and a half times more likely to be out of school.

In crisis settings, adolescent girls are more likely to be married by 18 than to finish school. Early pregnancies, gender-based violence and sexual and physical exploitation are realities faced by millions of girls daily. Take a moment and reflect on this brutal reality. Imagine if these figures were the reality of our own adolescent daughters.

The UNFPA projects that the diverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could result in 13 million additional child marriages between 2020 and 2030. These traumatic experiences lead to higher dropout rates, perpetuating cycles of exploitation and entrenching millions in poverty. Such is the excruciating consequences of girls already enduring conflicts and forced displacement and now surviving another threat: the pandemic.

Providing girls and adolescent girls in crisis with an education is absolutely essential today in order to empower them and bring hope. Their access to an inclusive quality education during already challenging circumstances is as transformative for them as human beings arising from the ashes of hopelessness, as it is for their societies in urgent need of empowered girls and women to build back better.

Studies show that increased access to education dramatically raises their lifetime earnings, national economic growth rates go up, child marriage rates decline, and child and maternal mortality fall. Girls’ education breaks down cycles of exploitation, protecting and empowering young girls and adolescents to reach their potentials and become change-makers. And, the world need change-makers more than ever, not the least in countries affected by conflicts and displacement.

The World Bank estimates that if every girl worldwide were to receive 12 years of quality schooling, whether or not in a crisis setting, they would double their lifetime earnings, with the aggregate value running into trillions of dollars.

Education provides girls with practical skills and tools; it supports them emotionally and empower them process their traumatic experiences; it prepares them to face their unique challenges, helping them to not only become productive members of society, but more and more, to become confident leaders of their societies.

It is a small crowd right at the top, however. Only about 20 countries have a female head of state or government, and fewer have at least 50 percent women in the national cabinet. But as COVID-19 has demonstrated, several have played decisive roles in protecting our humanity on the basis of universal human rights.

So, what does the pathway to leadership look like when you are young? How do we get young girls in crisis situations into education and then later to play important roles in the decision-making of their communities, their economies and nations?

Education Cannot Wait – the global fund launched at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit to deliver quality education for those left furthest behind, that is 75 million vulnerable children and youth in countries affected by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and protracted crises. At Education Cannot Wait we place girls and adolescent girls at the forefront of our work – because it is their inaliable human right and we believe in them as the change-makers. We take affirmative action: sixty percent of our total spending is geared at an inclusive quality education for girls.

Afghanistan, for example, is one of the most dangerous countries for children because of ongoing insecurity and conflict. UNICEF estimates that 60 percent of the 3.7 million children out of school are girls. Some 17 percent of Afghan girls will marry before the age of 15 and 46 percent will marry before they reach 18. Early marriages contribute significantly to school dropout rates.
The Welfare Association for the Development of Afghanistan, an ECW implementing partner, reaches out to community leaders to deliver real results for girls in the most remote areas of Afghanistan, who until recently were held back from going to school and from receiving a quality education.

ECW has given priority in Afghanistan to female teacher recruitment. This is being achieved in Herat, where 97 percent of teachers are women and 83 percent of students in accelerated learning classes are girls. The first year of ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programme – with teaching starting in May 2019 – saw some 3,600 classes established in nine of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. This required newly recruited teachers, 46 percent of whom are women, to teach 122,000 children. Nearly 60 percent of the enrolled children are girls.

In Rodat district in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, for example, community stakeholders and religious elders agreed the lack of qualified female teachers was hindering girls’ access to education, and immediately set about to find one. It was no easy task but eventually a female graduate in chemistry and biology was hired and she has turned into a beacon of hope, helping some 40 girls return to classes.

This emphasis on girls’ education is crucial for our future as a human family and the priority must be with those girls and adolescent girls left furthest behind. As Deputy-Secretary of the United Nations, Amina J. Mohammed, recently stated: “Girls’ education is particularly under threat in emergencies and for children on the move and we need to continue to empower this next generation of women leaders through a quality education.”

On March 8 we celebrate International Women’s Day with this year’s theme of ‘Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world’. From the perspective of those living in developed countries, what that equal future might look like for girls in crises settings has been perversely highlighted by the grim consequences of the new coronavirus world. As each month of lockdowns in rich countries passes, reports mount up of the mental health issues and child abuse being suffered by those unable to get to their normal safe learning environment at school. Girls especially are at risk and the ones more likely to be pressed into domestic chores and subject to discrimination – deprived of a future.

Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group, reminds us that the world in 2030 risks being as far away from meeting the Sustainable Development Goals for education (SDG4) as we are now – unless we act decisively. No one should be left behind and that means addressing support needed by over 75 million children and youth in need of urgent education support in crisis-hit countries.

Education cannot wait for a conflict or crisis to be over so that crisis affected children and youth can resume normal life, or refugee children can go home. Protracted crisis often last for decades and families caught up in conflicts spend an average of 17 years as refugees. When education is denied to children, hopes for a better, the last glimmer of hope is extinguished.

Education Cannot Wait is about hope and action. We were established to accelerate the race for meeting Sustainable Development Goal 4 in crisis and disasters. By bringing together all actors in both the humanitarian and development community, we sprint forward to meet the deadline of 2030. Thanks to host-governments, UN agencies, civil society and communities, we move fast, effectively and efficiently. However, a quality education for girls and adolescent girls in crisis requires financial investments. Provided that the funding is available, we can together win this race for girls’ education. Of this, we have no doubt.

The author is Director, Education Cannot Wait

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

Power is an intriguing concept and it means different things to different people. In simple words, power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get what you want. Power distribution is usually visible in most societies when there is a clear and obvious division between the roles of the men and expectations from women. One can’t talk about power without talking about patriarchy – in which men always hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Women are almost always taught power and ambition are two dirty words, and should not be linked to their personalities.

In 2020, as the world tried to survive the global pandemic, women across the world were trying to survive a lot more along with COVID-19, also at times claiming their power and negotiating their spaces in various different ways.

Kawkab Al-Thaibani

“War is the face of toxic masculinity, and it will never give women space, because women are peace agents. The war in Yemen is the biggest challenge we are facing, but the lack of desire by the negotiators to include women in any talks, another challenge,” Kawkab said in an interview to IPS News.

“Yemeni women are one of the most resilient groups in the society. In this Pandemic, the businesses run by women were forced to shut down, whereas shops run by men were not. There is discriminaiton and they think businesses run by women are not important, though it’s very obvious now that it’s the Yemeni women who are leading the financial responsibility of the family,” Kawkab said.

Speaking at the Webinar organized by the IPS United Nations Bureau in mid july 2020 on the impact of Covid-19 on Women and Children, Saima Wazed, Advisor to the Director General of WHO on Autism and Mental Health, and Chairperson, Shuchona Foundation said, “Women already are subject to a double burden of duties which includes unpaid housework. The pandemic drew a common picture across cultures of women with jobs having to juggle being employee, homemaker, cook, cleaner, teacher to her children overnight. Those in the informal sector were the first ones to lose all of their choices of small income sources they may have had.”

One of the other alarming impacts of COVID-19 pandemic has been on girls’ education. “11 million girls might not return to school this year due to COVID-19s unprecedented education disruption.” According to this report by UNESCO, “This alarming number not only threatens decades of progress made towards gender equality, but also puts girls around the world at risk of adolescent pregnancy, early and forced marriages, and violence. For many girls, school is more than just a key to a better future. It’s a lifeline.”

Addressing the deeply rooted gender disparities in and through education, Yasmine Sherif, Director, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) says because of the many risks and barriers that continue to constrain girls and adolescent girls from accessing education, in context where girls are under-represented, ECW encourages its country-level partners to ensure that at least 60% of learners reached are girls and adolescent girls. “This affirmative action to address these inequalities entails promoting a ‘whole-of-child’ approach. It also considers their safety, their food security, their physical and mental health,” Yasmine said to IPS.

Nazlan Ertan

In Turkey, in 2019, 474 women were murdered, mostly by partners and relatives and the figures in 2020, affected by coronavirus lockdowns, are expected to be even higher. “Women have been on the streets and various hashtags have surfaced, domestic violence has increased, nearly half of all the women claim that they have faced some form of physical or psychological abuse in their lives, said journalist Nazlan Ertan to IPS News.

In Bangladesh, in October 2020, citizens took to the streets, outraged by the reports of gruesome gang rapes and sexual violence that were taking place in the country. 975 women were raped in the first nine months of 2020 during the pandemic, 43 women were killed after being raped and 204 women were attempted to be raped by men in Bangladesh.

Shireen Huq

“Violence, male dominance and male aggression have existed for years, the tendency to glorify that these things didn’t happen in the past, and that it’s only happening now in our lifetime, is not true. Misogyny has been part of our culture, politics and society for centuries, especially across South Asia,” said Shireen.

In Egypt, Mozn Hassan, one of the most outspoken voices on human rights, founder and Executive Director of Nazra for Feminist Studies has had a travel ban imposed on her since June 2016, following previous incidents of judicial harassment against Nazra for Feminist Studies, including summons in relation to foreign funding case.

In an interview to IPS News Mozn said, “Being an independent femisnist voice can cost you a lot, targeting by state actors, asset freeze, travel ban, charges of supporting women to have “irresponsible liberty”, or facing threats of charges that could bring you to life time in prisons are just a few examples.”

Mozn Hassan

In addition to these pre-existing social, political and systematic barriers to women’s participation and leadership, there are multiple new barriers that have emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic. However countries with women in leadership positions have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from COVID-19 than countries with governments led by men, only 20 countries have women as Head of State and Government worldwide.

The stories of strong female leaders navigating their countries through the pandemic crisis will be remembered for a long time to come, and perhaps also change the overarching narrative of what a strong leader should look and behave like – as compared to the reckless, often pompous and populist male leaders of the world. We are still a long way from fully leveraging the potential of women’s leadership, expertise and intelligence, but that’s not stopping women from taking charge.

The very nature of power is dominance, and women in their own quiet or not-so-quiet and resilient ways have sent the message out, that they are no longer willing to negotiate this space, they are simply going ahead and claiming it.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invitedto share their views.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

UN Women China Qinghai programme beneficiaries. Credit: UN Women

By Siddharth Chatterjee and Smriti Aryal
BEIJING, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

Today is International Women’s Day (IWD), and the theme for this year’s celebration is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” We recognize the tremendous contribution and leadership demonstrated by women and girls around the world in shaping our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and a more sustainable future.

A global review of the progress achieved towards commitments made at the Fourth World Conference on Women 25 years ago in Beijing, conducted by UN Women in 2020, reveals that no country has fully delivered on the Beijing Platform for Action, nor is close to it. Globally, women currently hold just one-quarter of the seats at the tables of power across the board and are absent from some key decision-making spaces, including in peace and climate negotiations.

This reality is despite the advances that we can see globally: there are now more girls in school than ever before, fewer women are dying in childbirth, and over the past decade, 131 countries have passed laws to support women’s equality.

However, progress has been too slow and uneven.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is further exacerbating pre-existing inequalities and threatening to halt or reverse the gains from decades of collective effort – with data revealing that the pandemic will push 47 million more women and girls below the poverty line globally.

Siddharth Chatterjee

But in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, women have stood tall at the frontlines, serving as health workers and caregivers, where they make up 70% of the global workforce. Women also lead in their capacities throughout government and civil society to give vital assistance, bringing their irreplaceable perspectives and skills to the table.

Answering these complex global challenges while tearing down the barriers to women’s participation and leadership now requires bolder political commitment backed up by adequate resources and targeted approaches to accelerate progress towards parity through legislation, fiscal measures, programmatic change, and public-private partnerships.

China has made progress in safeguarding women’s rights and promoting gender equality. Notably, China’s poverty alleviation achievements have had a multiplier effect on advancing women’s empowerment beyond alleviating poverty among women. Advances in girl’s education, access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, social protection and assistance are admirable – and important not just for the advancement of women’s rights – but in creating a “moderately prosperous” Chinese society with a “bright shared future” for all. Yet, as in many countries, there are still challenges that persist across the course of women’s lives.

Like elsewhere, systemic issues remain in equal pay for equal work and promotion opportunities for decent work in China. Under-representation of women in senior leadership roles impacts many sectors, with less than 10% of board members of listed companies in China being women.

Smriti Aryal

The newly enacted Civil Code offers opportunities to strengthen legislation, including judicial mechanisms, law enforcement and service delivery for addressing sexual harassment, sexual abuse and violence against women and girls. Robust implementation of the provisions for ending sexual harassment and abuse will be a step towards China’s demonstration of “Zero Tolerance” towards ending all forms of violence against women and girls.

The 14th Five-Year National Development Plan, 2021-2025 and the new 10-Year Plan on Development of Women and Children, 2021-2030, also present opportunities for China to ensure gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the centre of the development agenda and address the remaining gender gaps and challenges in the country. The world now looks to China for continued leadership on the SDGs and the Beijing Platform for Action.

We welcome the Government of China’s recent commitment to prioritizing women’s empowerment in its future development cooperation and global engagement. This comes at a time, when we need stronger global action and multilateralism to alleviate the long-lasting impacts of COVID-19 and accelerate actions towards the achievement of the SDGs. As we look at women’s rights issues that many countries are grappling with – poverty, maternal health, livelihood and food security, access to continued education, to name a few – are also the areas where China has seen the most progress domestically. South-South cooperation enables China to share its lessons and continue learning from others, to achieve genuine empowerment for women and girls around the world.

We recognize that gender equality and women’s empowerment are drivers for transformative change and a prerequisite for the achievement of all SDGs. The UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, 2021-2025, signed between the United Nations System in China and the Government of China, is underpinned by this principle and prioritizes the advancement of women’s rights as a key programming area of its own. As the UN Country Team (UNCT), we stand ready to support and continue to work with the Government of China and all national actors for our concerted efforts towards advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.

2021 is only the beginning of our journey on the Decade of Action for the SDGs. We have an unprecedented opportunity to do things differently for current and future generations of women and girls. On International Women’s Day, we call upon our partners and supporters to celebrate the leadership and contribution of China’s women, and become advocates, champions, and influencers that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment today, and every day.

Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China & Smriti Aryal, Head of Office, UN Women in China
On behalf of the UN Country Team in China for International Women’s Day 2021

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By UNESCO
Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

UNESCO will launch a campaign on online violence against women journalists this 8 March for International Women’s Day.

In a recent UNESCO-ICFJ survey, 73% of the women journalists surveyed reported having faced online violence while doing their job. They are often targeted in coordinated misogynistic attacks.

This violence harms women’s right to speak and society’s right to know. To tackle this increasing trend, we need to find collective solutions to protect women journalists from online violence. This includes strong responses from social media platforms, national authorities and media organizations.

The campaign will highlight key results from the UNESCO-ICFJ global survey on online violence against women journalists, which were published last December in the report ‘Online violence against women journalists: a global snapshot of incidence and impacts’ 

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in the COVID-19 World. A new United Nations report says progress towards gender parity in public life and decision-making has been too slow. The report encourages countries to remove the barriers that prevent women from entering public life, to help tackle the COVID-19 and climate change crises. Credit: UN Women/Yihui Yuan.

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021, ‘Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in the COVID-19 World,’ is grounded in the reality that this women’s day is unlike any other.

It is being observed against the devastating health, social and economic impacts of the pandemic. As vaccination campaigns bring hope for recovery, United Nations Women says that shift must include women ‘at every table where decisions are being made.’

“Women’s full and effective participation and leadership in all areas of life drives progress for everyone. Yet, women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making,” the agency said.

According to the most recent UN Economic and Social Council’s Commission on the Status of Women, progress towards gender parity in public life and decision-making has been too slow. The report encourages countries to remove the barriers that prevent women from entering public life, to help tackle the COVID-19 and climate change crises.

It also calls for urgent action to facilitate women in the ‘political pipeline,’ noting that young women are particularly underrepresented in politics. IPS spoke to Lisa Jawahir, a young communications professional who was appointed by the Saint Lucia Labour Party to the Senate in August 2020, about her experience, goals and vision for women in politics. 

“The reality is that in Saint Lucia, young women in leadership, particularly political positions are very rare. While we had a young woman run for political office at the age of 21 in 1997, since then, there hasn’t been a bold step by administrations to have young women serve at the highest order of the land. For me, at the age of 31, being appointed as the youngest Parliamentarian in the House of Assembly means that women and young girls can believe again that anything is possible,” Jawahir told IPS.

Senator Lisa Jawahir (left) and Environmental Consultant and Youth Climate Activist Snaliah Mahal (right).

UN Women says while women have been influential in political decision-making, they often face push-back, both online and offline. It is something that Jawahir says she has experienced.

“I once participated in a political forum, representing young women interested in politics.  In an interview with a print journalist, I shared my desire to run for political office and the article made the cover page. While this felt like a remarkable step in the right direction, a few days later, I lost my biggest client who shared concerns that I was now politically affiliated.  

“Unfortunately, in my country, victimisation based on political affiliation is rampant, especially for women. It’s become a challenge to operate my small business, but I’m driven by the desire that one day I will be in a position on the governing side, to ensure that no young person, woman or vulnerable group will be unjustly treated due to their political interests,” she told IPS.

Voices like Jawahir’s, according to UN Women, must be multiplied and amplified. As the world pivots to pandemic recovery, the agency says women and girls will be key leaders and change agents, particularly in areas like climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Saint Lucia’s Snaliah Mahal is a recognised personality in sustainable living, environmental protection and climate change education. As an undergraduate student in Mexico, she interned with the UN Information Centre and volunteered in relief efforts post-flooding in Mexico and following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. She completed a post-graduate degree in Climate Change and International Development and volunteers with the Caribbean Youth Environment Network. She also runs 7K’s, a small business that produces zero waste and eco-friendly home and personal care products.

“I believe that citizens from Small Island Developing States, because of their inherent disadvantages and vulnerabilities, must do whatever they can to ensure that our voices are heard not only internationally which sometimes is the focus, but locally and regionally and be part of the discourse no matter how small you may consider your contribution,’ she told IPS.

Mahal’s contribution is part of what UN Women describes as the critical role that women play in climate action and natural resources management. The agency says in many countries, women also serve as energy managers in the home. As entrepreneurs, they continue to offer innovative solutions to climate change impacts.

Mahal says women and girls who want to be part of the movement for a more sustainable future can start small; wherever they are, with whatever resources are available.

“Find a cause that you believe in and focus on it. It does not have to be something big. It can be as simple as deciding to share your knowledge with friends and family, or something a little more challenging such as starting a backyard garden or a compost heap. These are important first steps,” she said.

This International Women’s Day, an important message by UN Women is that ‘when women lead, we see positive results.’ As women lead campaigns for social justice, environmental justice and a sustainable future and as they seek to amplify their voices, the agency is calling for countries to make space for women and encourage their participation in public life, private sector leadership and parliaments.

As the world focuses on building back better, the role of women as caregivers, lawmakers, community organisers and innovators is being celebrated – even as calls for increased representation in decision-making continue. Mahal and Jawahir say women and girls can continue to make positive change in their communities.

“You can join an organisation that advocates climate change and other environmental issues and implements projects. Most importantly, individuals especially women already in the field, who have the knowledge and skills should not hesitate to share their experiences with other women and girls, to ensure that there is continuity in action,” Mahal says.

Jawahir’s message to young women is “if you were to remember anything after reading this article, remember that there is absolutely nothing stopping you from reaching your goals whether you decide to enter politics or become an entrepreneur. Not your age, not your gender. You decide what it is that you want. Stay focused, and go after it.”

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Agricultural biodiversity at the market in Western Bengal. Credit: Krishnasis Ghosh

By Haley Zaremba
ROME, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

In times of crisis, policymakers have a tendency to prioritize economic recovery while leaving “social issues” like women’s empowerment on the backburner. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, women’s leadership is as essential to full and meaningful recovery as it is to basic human rights. As the world mobilizes to design and build a post-COVID landscape, women’s rights, interests and priorities must not only be included in international recovery agendas but pushed to the forefront. To achieve this, women themselves must not simply be included in the discussion, but equitably represented in leadership roles.

For these reasons the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world” is a cause for celebration as much as a call to action. Women’s considerable achievements at the forefront of global pandemic response have been as laudable as they are essential. They also call into stark relief the disproportionate and undue labor burden that continues to fall upon women in this time of global crisis.

While there is a clear and pressing need to achieve more gender-equitable representation in leadership – just a quarter of parliamentary seats are held by women worldwide – women are already on the front lines of COVID-19 response efforts. As the United Nations has stated, women have played outsized roles in this crisis as “health care workers, caregivers, innovators, community organizers and as some of the most exemplary and effective national leaders in combating the pandemic.” At the same time, women are also among those most vulnerable to the pandemic and its devastating externalities. Among other disproportionate and gendered impacts, women’s unpaid domestic and care-based labor burdens have increased during the spread of COVID-19, as has the frequency and severity of gender-based violence in a frightening phenomenon that the UN has called the “shadow pandemic.”

This increased vulnerability is particularly relevant for rural women. Women in rural areas already stood a higher risk of disenfranchisement, and their considerable social and economic struggles have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Already confronted with the devastating combination of climate change, decreased biodiversity, severe and worsening land degradation, and resulting food insecurity, rural women have been pushed further below the poverty line than men and into the margins by COVID-19 .

Secure land tenure, essential to the well-being and livelihoods of rural women, has increasingly come under threat with the advance of the novel coronavirus. COVID-19 widows are at a high risk for disinheritance in several countries, and many more rural women are being displaced as unemployed men return to rural communities, thereby “increasing pressure on land and resources and exacerbating gender gaps in agriculture and food security.”

Safeguarding the rights, livelihoods, empowerment and agency of rural women should be a goal unto itself, but doing so is also essential to safeguarding ecological health and food security writ large. Already, COVID-19 has not only compromised progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but has undone some of the progress made. Rural women are central to sustainable development and post-COVID resilience as natural resource managers, land stewards, food growers, sellers, buyers and preparers. They are not merely victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also essential – and all too often overlooked – agents of change. They are also part of the solution.

The restrictions brought on by the pandemic have isolated rural women and inhibited their abilities to maintain their livelihoods as well as to “fulfill their fundamental roles as farmers, social organizers, wives, and mothers.” What’s more, as women have been kept from gathering in common spaces such as marketplaces, an essential forum for communication in rural communities, misinformation has proliferated. All of these effects are exacerbated by the “digital gender divide,” which is heightened in rural areas where women are even less likely to have access to phones, computers and other technologies which would allow for innovation and resilience in isolation.

As illustrated by one case study of rural women in Burkina Faso by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, social distancing requirements keeping rural women from the marketplace, as well as keeping them from each other, has greatly compromised these women’s ability to earn a living, as well as their ability to support one another in community-led efforts and organization. Women’s stories documented in this study show that, “As pillars for their households and communities, rural women’s needs and priorities must take center-stage in efforts to rebuild a better world.”

Despite being essential to safeguarding biodiversity, combating climate change, and shoring up food security and food sovereignty, rural women’s labor is often carried out in the background, with little recognition (not to mention little compensation). This International Women’s Day, we urge that post-COVID recovery initiatives not repeat these mistakes; and that the needs and priorities of rural women are not only recognized but prioritized. As we advocate for more women in leadership in COVID-19 recovery efforts and across all spheres of social life to create more resilient societies, those calls to action must intentionally and explicitly include rural women, their rights, and their perspectives.

The author is a gender researcher at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Groundnut farm in Torit, South Sudan. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS.

By Sabdiyo Dido
NAIROBI, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic is arguably one of the biggest disruptors to modern day life as we know it. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating; millions of people have lost their lives, tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty and nearly half of the global work force is at risk of losing their livelihoods. Africa is facing its first economic recession in 25 years due to the impact of the pandemic.

In a continent where agriculture accounts for 23% of the GDP and about 40% of the workforce is engaged in the sector, agriculture has not been spared from the worst impacts of the pandemic.

Across the globe, it has been inspiring to see prior investments in empowering women-led agribusiness begin to pay off—and that the measures have enabled women farmers to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. This could be the case for Africa too

Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, markets and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets.

Through all this, about 50% of the global population has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, women.

The pandemic has exacerbated existing structural economic, social, and technological inequalities that women face as they struggle to perform their multiple roles in society. These inequalities undermine women’s capacity to respond and recover from the disruptions that result from the pandemic. Women are a key pillar in the Africa’s food and agricultural systems.

They constitute 50% of the agricultural workforce and own one-third of the small and medium enterprises (SME’s) that produce, process and trade in agricultural products and services. The pandemic not only affected their livelihoods and agri-business enterprises, but also increased women’s workloads, threatened their families’ wellbeing, and increase incidences of gender-based violence.

As we commemorate the International Women’s Day this year, we are acutely aware that as the narrative now shifts to building back better, we must ensure that women are at the center of short term and longer term recovery efforts to create a more equal and resilient society.

Over the course of my career as an agricultural economist and development practitioner and, I have seen the change that can be realized when women receive the support, they need during times such as these. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the power of interventions designed for and targeted to women in agriculture that can help protect their lives and livelihoods in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

African governments need to design and support such interventions. This means providing avenues for continued access to inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, mechanization and advisory services. It also means women accessing knowledge and skills to make best outcome of their labour inputs.

As economies open after months of lockdowns and restricted movement, access to financing, grants for those that closed due to pandemic and flexible loans for those that kept going albeit in a small way- is key for recovery. Accessing high value markets is an important factor, not only for recovery, but for higher incomes that help build financial resilience in women’s agri-enterprises.

During the pandemic, digital services have provided a crucial lifeline for businesses. Women business managers have used social media to market their products while accessing information on production, weather and agronomic advisories, financing and accessing markets. Deploying digital capacity building at scale and increasing women entrepreneurs’ participation in the digital economy through digital finance, digital marketing and digital trade is key as we rebuild economies.

Initiatives such as VALUE4HER, a platform whose aim is to increase incomes and employment opportunities for women by linking women-led agribusinesses with competitive high value regional and global markets, and improving women business leader’s technical and managerial skills, with training on market dynamics are key to growing women-owned agribusinesses further.

Currently hosting over 750 users from 36 countries across the continent, the platform provides real-time access to relevant knowledge, market information, buyers, financiers, business development services, technical assistance, capabilities and social networks.

These services hosted under one roof provide a conducive ecosystem for female owned agribusinesses to access the tools they need to become profitable businesses.

Also key is providing tailored training and capacity building for women to respond, recover, and build resilience. With low literacy levels and limited networks, women’s access to relevant information and support mechanisms is curtailed.

Programs such as the African Resilience Investment Series for Women Executives (ARISE), which AGRA kicks off today in celebration of international women’s day- seeks to equip women-owned and women-led SMEs with the necessary tools and practical management skills, needed to recover from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

Across the globe, it has been inspiring to see prior investments in empowering women-led agribusiness begin to pay off—and that the measures have enabled women farmers to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. This could be the case for Africa too. Investing in women makes good business sense; it leads to increased incomes for women and boosts the wellbeing of their families, which means better lives for families, communities and society as a whole.

Sabdiyo Dido is the Head of Gender and Inclusiveness at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By External Source
Mar 5 2021 (IPS-Partners)

“A girl should be two things: Who and what she wants.” – Coco Chanel

Women of the world want and deserve an equal future…a future that’s sustainable, peaceful, with equal rights and opportunities for all.

This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is: Women in Leadership: Achieving and equal future in a COVID-19 world.

It celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world… shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the gaps still remain.

Women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making.

Women are Heads of State or Government in only 22 countries.

Only 24.9% of national parliamentarians are women.

At this rate, gender equality among Heads of State or Government will take 130 years.

An analysis of COVID-19 task teams from 87 countries found only 3.5% of them had gender parity.

When women lead, we see positive results.

Some of the most efficient and exemplary responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were led by women.

Young women are at the forefront of movements for social justice, climate change and equality in all parts of the world.

Yet, women under 30 are less than 1 per cent of parliamentarians worldwide.

This year’s International Women’s Day is a rallying cry for Generation Equality.

It is time to act for an equal future for all.

By Katja Iversen
NEW YORK, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

Almost exactly a year ago today, I packed my computer and a couple of necessities in the office in New York, hugged the colleagues, and headed home to what most people thought would be a couple of week’s Covid-19 lockdown. Little did we know.

Katja Iversen

Taking stock today on International Women’s Day 2021 with its theme: “Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world,” the bag is a lot more mixed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened inequality at large, and has disproportionately affected girls and women. They constitute the vast majority of the frontline health and social workers across the globe; they carry even more of the unpaid care work at home in locked down families than before; they are the victims of the dramatic surge in domestic violence spurred by lockdowns; many women have lost access to essential sexual and reproductive health care, like family planning and safe childbirths; and women have – to a much larger extend than men – lost their jobs and economic opportunities.

Women’s rights organizations have worked tremendously hard in the communities and on the fore-front of COVID-19. Back in the first weeks of the pandemic, I myself and the civil society led Deliver for Good campaign worked with the UN Secretary General and his team on how we could place girls, women and gender equality at the center of the UN’s COVID-19 work, and we also made sure that the UN COVID-19 response and recovery fund got a solid gender lens.

However, throughout the world, women have largely been left out of decision making on essential COVID-19 efforts. Only 3.5% of national COVID task forces have gender parity according to a study in British Medical Journal, and the brand new Global Health 50/50 report being launched on 8 March 2021 suggests that rhetoric is often used as a substitute for action, and reveals that the vast majority of programmatic activities to prevent and address the health impacts of COVID-19 largely ignores the role of gender.

There is a certain irony to this, as countries with women at the helm, like New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, Taiwan etc. have fared a lot better in dealing with the pandemic – and as countries with more women in political leadership in general do better in terms of both lowering inequalities and driving stronger economies. The answer to this dichotomy might be found in the latest Reykjavik Index by Women Political Leaders and Kantar, that measures how people feel about women in power. It shows that support is stagnating, and that it is even decreasing among younger men.

So, hard won progress has been rolled back. But there are also good news, which I as an eternal optimist, want to include in today’s stocktaking:

The global cry for racial justice has propelled a much and long needed focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in political, economic and social life. We are also seeing a surge in gender smart investing, with 2020 bringing some big, new and achieved gender-smart allocations. A global survey from Women Deliver and Focus 2030 from January shows that the vast majority of the surveyed voters consider gender equality to be an important cause governments should work towards, and support involving women in all aspects of COVID-19 response and recovery efforts. And the Biden/Harris win in the United States is manifesting in very diverse political appointments, in budget allocations, in commitments to sustainability and to gender equality, and the revoking of the republican Global Gag Rule that has prevented support to reproductive health across the globe.

The global Generation Equality Forum was postponed a year, and the work of its six action coalitions is gaining speed. Over the next three months all actors – heads of states, leaders from corporates and civil society organizations, celebrities, journalists, activists, young and old – will be meeting – mostly virtually – on multiple occasions to commit to transformative action, and show that a gender equal world is a healthier, wealthier, and better world for all.

So – as I am celebrating International Women’s Day 2021, it is on a backdrop of hope, some apprehension, and a lot of determination. The inclusion and leadership of girls and women, in all their rich diversity, is needed in every arena and at every level – in COVID-19 efforts, in politics, in the economy, and in general. If we don’t prioritize and invest in women’s leadership, the COVID recovery will be less effective, and the future will be less just and less sustainable. That is not the world we want!

The author is an executive adviser and leading global advocate on sustainability, gender equality, and women’s health and leadership. Katja was a member of President Macron’s and Prime Minister Trudeau’s G7 Gender Equality Advisory Councils, an advisor to the Clinton Global was one of the original members of 100Women@Davos, and was recently named Dane of the Year, as well as included in Apolitical’s Top 20 of the Most Influential People in Gender Policy.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Patricia Scotland
LONDON, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

Among the greatest gifts with which I have been blessed were parents who instilled in me a deep-rooted sense of identity, and the unequivocal belief that there was no difference between what a boy and a girl could achieve.

This assurance sustained me while growing up, as the tenth child out of twelve wonderful siblings, and through the numerous times when it was suggested by others that I would never succeed, simply because I was black, poor and female.

Patricia Scotland

We have come a long way since then, and today – thanks in a large part to sustained advocacy efforts over the years – there is encouraging progress in terms of gender equality in the Commonwealth.

Almost half the lawyers in the UK are women now. In the Commonwealth, a girl is just as likely to attend primary school as a boy, while on average, 56% of women participate in the labour force, and they make up the larger part of the informal sector.

To date, 13 member countries have achieved 30% or more female members of parliament, while ten have 30% or more ministers who are women. The Commonwealth Secretariat continues to work diligently alongside member countries through programmes that encourage women’s participation in politics to build on success already achieved.

However, there remains much progress to be made on several key indicators. Currently, only one in five Commonwealth parliamentarians is a woman, and only three Commonwealth countries have achieved gender parity in parliament. Women are still vastly under-represented in leadership positions in the science, academic and private sectors.

Furthermore, in an era where digital technology is becoming increasingly the norm, women in poorer countries face a ‘double digital divide’, being 14% less likely than men to own a mobile phone. In practical terms, this means that there are 200 million fewer women who can readily access this technology to find information or manage money online.

Other underlying systemic inequalities continue to be remarkably persistent, including the distressing prevalence of violence against women and girls, which remains high throughout the Commonwealth and across the world, despite the advances there have been in women’s economic status, leadership and agency.

Covid-19

A year into the global pandemic, it is clear that besides economic and social shocks, the consequences of COVID-19 are also exacerbating existing gender inequities.

In addition to rising cases of domestic violence, reports show that women have been losing their jobs at a greater rate than men, despite making up a smaller proportion of the formal labour force. Meanwhile, the burden of unpaid care work is being borne disproportionately by women.

Research indicates that women are overly represented in sectors and industries expected to decline because of COVID-19, such as education, accommodation and food services, wholesale and retail trade, arts and recreation, and public administration. Similarly, women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises which rely on tourism have also been affected, because of greatly reduced travel and visitor arrivals in most Commonwealth countries.

Notably, throughout this crisis, I have been impressed by the leadership demonstrated by female heads of government in the Commonwealth. Prime Ministers Mia Mottley of Barbados, Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand have all been rightly lauded for their able handling of the crisis, marked by coordinated action as well as compassion.

However, this also draws our attention to how few women hold these positions of leadership, underlining the need for politics and government to reflect more fairly and inclusively the societies they represent and serve.

International Women’s Day

This International Women’s Day, the Commonwealth Secretariat is highlighting ways in which it engages to challenge the gender inequalities that continue to hold back the economic, social and leadership potential of half of the world’s population.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has launched a social media campaign #SheLeadsTheWay, which aims to recognise women leaders across the Commonwealth, during COVID-19 and beyond. (Download toolkit)

On 5 March, we celebrated women’s contributions to ocean science in a virtual event featuring women from across the Commonwealth who are challenging gender norms through their work in ocean industries.

On 8 March, another virtual panel will put a spotlight on women’s leadership in responding to COVID-19 and charting an equitable recovery.

There remains much more to do to achieve gender equality in the Commonwealth, and in order to deliver Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Agenda. As the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on inequality emerges, laws and policies to support women’s empowerment are needed more than ever before, and it is vital that we should not be diverted from this priority by other competing demands during these times of crisis.

The author is the sixth Commonwealth Secretary-General and the first woman to hold the post.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Lesley Ann Foster
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

International Women’s day 2021 heralds a particularly challenging time for women and girls. The Covid pandemic has battered our world to such an extent that we know that our lives have been irrevocably changed and has rolled back some of the gains we made in the human rights and gender equality field.

Lesley Ann Foster

Some 2,6 million jobs were lost with two out of every three jobs lost being lost to women. Women constitute the bulk of informal traders and are largely found in the travel and hospitality industry which was hard hit by the pandemic. The lock down saw children and students working from home and men who lost jobs returned home as well. The burden of care fell largely to women. Women took on the responsibility of caring for the sick, the infected and many who lost family members had the burden of funerals placed at their doorstep. Food insecurity was at its highest levels in spite of the social grants that the state made available to try to mitigate the hunger deepened by the pandemic.

Stepping up

85 women’s groups who are part of a network of rural women’s groups that Masimanyane Women’s Rights International supports, provided leadership at great cost with some lives lost to the pandemic. Yet, women activists and human rights defenders braved the storm of the pandemic to feed people by approaching suppliers to donate food, establishing family gardens and sourcing water. Violence against women and girls (VAWG) rose sharply during Covid due to existing inequality and harsh lock down regulations resulting in isolation from support systems.

Masimanyane Women’s Rights International (MWRI)developed responses that dealt with the structural impediments and providing care and support.

We were cognisant of the inequality in our society and initiated a policy to guide our responses to the pandemic grounded in a gender inequality perspective.

Secondly we addressed the needs of women on the ground by taking our face to face engagements with women and communities onto online platforms to avert the risk of infection. This revealed inequality through digital poverty and illiteracy, a lack of working space at home, limited access to connectivity and data and a lack of smart resources. We developed a structured plan to overcome these obstacles.

Mental health problems emerged early into the Covid pandemic based on fear, anxiety, stress, depression and suicide. We pre-empted this and included mental health protocols for self-care. We advocated for increased mental health support for women through national structures. The rise in deaths prompted us to conduct bereavement and grief counselling to ensure the necessary skills in responding to deaths. When the hunger levels grew, we secured a humanitarian grant to provide women with food vouchers to assist in food security.

MWRI applied its care and support internally by providing staff with a strengthened health support through the provision of immune boosting supplements, flu vaccinations and personal protective equipment. These safety measures reduced the risk to staff as we had only three infections out of 62 staff members.

Structural developments

In the first few weeks of the pandemic, our organisation was deeply involved in a presidential committee that was tasked to develop a national strategic plan on gender based violence and femicide (NSP GBVF). This NSP GBVF was completed in March 2020 and signed off in April 2020. This plan addresses gender inequality and recognises it as a key driver of GBVF. We worked with partners nationally to develop referral pathways so that women in situations of isolation could reach support services. We developed a data base of women’s organisations in each province that could provide a rapid response to calls for assistance. We gathered data in an attempt to provide a snapshot of how women were experiencing the lock down.

Monitoring

We monitored the impact of COVID-19 on the economy generally and on women specifically. We found that women were suffering the most from job loses, from the docking of their pay and from retrenchments. While the government put a social grant system in place to assist the poor communities, women were the least likely to access those grants due to social impediments impeding access. Food insecurity grew and women bore the brunt of that too.

MWRI was able to approach donors and request humanitarian support to provide food vouchers which helped in small measure to alleviate hunger for some families.

Leadership

When confronting a national disaster, we have to apply a strong gender analysis before we try to thread the response needle. It was important to provide a comprehensive and holistic response to the Covid pandemic by working on the structural inequalities through policy formulation, programme development and resource allocation. It is critical that the immediate needs of women at the rock face be addressed with urgency in a crisis.

We salute the women whose courage, strength and resilience was evident throughout the pandemic and applaud their on-going activism to dismantle structural inequality.

The author is Executive Director Masimanyane Women’s Rights International, South Africa

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, CEO of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, speaking at the 19th Anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in New York, NY. Credit: Katrina Leclerc/GNWP

By Maria Victoria (Mavic) Cabrera Balleza
NEW YORK, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” The theme celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future, including an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

From our work at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, we know that local women peacebuilders are the first responders in this pandemic. They distribute food packs, face masks, hygiene and sexual health products to internally displaced people, refugees, indigenous communities and other groups that often lack access to aid provided by governments and international organizations.

They work with mental health experts to provide online counseling to women who are victims of, or at risk of gender-based violence. They disseminate factual information on how to prevent the spread of the virus. They speak on local radio to counter fake news about the pandemic.

Local women peacebuilders were out on the frontlines at the outset of the pandemic, even as governments did not yet know what to do, or were paralyzed by their own politicking and heavy bureaucracy.

Today, almost a year after COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic, they remain on the frontlines: advocating for strengthening of health care systems, dismantling institutional inequalities, addressing the long-term impacts of the crisis on livelihoods and peace in their countries and communities, and promoting sustainable recovery.

The success of women-led governments such as Finland, Germany, New Zealand, and Taiwan in managing the pandemic presents yet additional evidence that women’s leadership makes a positive difference.

Despite this, the norm remains that women are not the leaders and decision-makers. Only 24.7 per cent of the world’s health ministers are women even though they make up 70 per cent of health care workers. At the sub-national and local levels, women are often excluded in COVID-19 Task Forces.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (SG) has stated “the #COVID19 response has highlighted the power of women’s leadership. Yet women remain marginalized from many decision-making spaces. We need to act now to ensure women have an equal voice in our response to the pandemic and other crises facing our world.”

Members of GNWP’s Young Women+ Leaders for Peace – Philippines distributing COVID-19 relief packages to local community members in Marawi, Philippines. Credit: YWL-Phillippines/GNWP

Signs of hope in the Security Council, but much remains to be done

As civil society, we join the SG in demanding Member States to institute measures to support women’s leadership!

There are some hopeful developments and opportunities that could be seized. The election of Ireland, Mexico and Norway as non-permanent members of the Security Council can provide a much-needed boost to the calls for women’s leadership.

All of these countries have demonstrated global leadership on women’s rights and gender equality as well as the women, peace and security agenda. Mexico takes pride in its adoption of a feminist foreign policy.

It co-chairs the Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security with Ireland, and is a co-host of the Generation Equality Forum, a civil society–centered global convening for gender equality wherein one of the outcomes is the Action Coalition on Feminist movements and leadership. France, a permanent member of the Security Council, is the other co-host of the Generation Equality Forum, and one of four countries that have adopted feminist foreign or international development policies.

The other two are Canada and Sweden. It should however be noted that there does remain a disconnect between these countries’ aspirations and leadership on the global arena and the actual state of women’s rights.

The confirmation of Linda Thomas-Greenfield as the new US Ambassador to the UN is another key development. With the US having elected the first woman Vice President and other female leaders appointed to key positions in the Biden administration, women’s influence in US Foreign Policy looks to be changing for the better.

It is also important to mention that there are now five women Permanent Representatives to the Security Council namely, Ireland (Geraldine Byrne Nason), Norway (Mona Juul), St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Inga Rhonda King), United Kingdom (Barbara Woodward) and Thomas-Greenfield. Probably the biggest number of women taking up seats in the Security Council in the recent years—if not ever.

A few questions beg to be asked. How can these handful of countries influence the rest of the world and make women’s leadership a priority? How can the UN be the model of women’s leadership when, 76 years since its founding, there has still never been a woman Secretary-General?

Local Women and Youth Peacebuilders Demand to Participate in the Afghan Peace Process. Credit: GNWP

Security Council members need to unite behind the call for a woman SG and remove the gap between what is stipulated in the Women and Peace and Security resolutions and leadership in the UN.

All Member States should seriously pay attention to the letter sent by Ambassador Mary Elizabeth Flores Flake of Honduras on 03 February 2021 urging her fellow diplomats “to look genuinely at your commitments to the United Nations and present women candidates…”

It is also high time to demonstrate that the most important action that male leaders can take to support women’s leadership is to step back, and share power. This will require men to sacrifice their personal ambitions and set their egos aside for the bigger goal of achieving gender equality and a better world for all.

Electing a woman SG is much more than a symbolic gesture. It is about the UN leading by example which is crucial to its credibility. It is also about fulfilling the promise to nominate candidates for appointment to senior posts in the UN made by 189 Member States during the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing.

Civil society groups such as Equality Now have been advocating for a woman SG. While the next opportunity to elect a woman to the highest position in the UN is still five years away, our advocacy should NOT stop.

Our advocacy should start from the capitals of the 193 Member States and continue through the Permanent Missions in New York. Women’s rights organizations from around the world should demand their governments to nominate and elect a woman as the next SG. And who are the “right” women for this role?

I think we can agree on this set of qualifications: feminist values, strong connectedness with and appreciation of civil society, excellent leadership track record, managerial abilities, extensive experience in international relations, and outstanding diplomatic skills.

From the looks of it, Antonio Guterres is already a shoo-in for a second term. China and the United Kingdom, two permanent members of the Security Council have already expressed their support to the incumbent SG.

For now, and throughout his second term, women’s rights activists need to have discussions with SG Guterres to seek his assurance that he will do everything in his power to pave the way for a woman SG, and integrate feminist values in the work of the UN.

As the UN calls on Member States to ensure women’s leadership at all levels, it needs to practice what it preaches. Echoing SG Guterres, “the #COVID19 response has highlighted the power of women’s leadership.” The world needs women at the decision-making table in order to build back better and equal.

The author is Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders. She also serves as a consultant to UN Women.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Protest for women's rights in Kathmandu, Nepal. Credit: Sanjog Manandhar

By Bibbi Abruzzini, Pénélope Hubert and Yohan Cambet
PARIS, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

Today, despite centuries of activism and mobilisations, women and non-binary people continue to remain disadvantaged in almost every sphere – from “public life” to the “shadow pandemic” of gender-based violence.

In light of COVID-19, some struggles have been considered in theory, but most continue to be ignored in practice. How can we dismantle the “gender lies” perpetuating in the 21st century? How do we start taking into account the diverse experiences of women, without excluding black and indigenous voices on the basis of power and privilege?

Afghanistan, Nepal, Bolivia, Mexico and Uganda: five activists tell us how they transform the ways their communities think and act around gender.

Afghanistan: rap music to save child brides

Sonita Alizadeh, is a survivor of two attempts at forced marriage, and now a rapper and activist fighting for the liberation of women against forced marriage. Born in Herat, Afghanistan, under the Taliban regime, she grew up in Iran, as a refugee with her family. At 10 years old, she narrowly escaped a forced marriage. Her family again tried to sell her when she was sixteen, she escaped. Afghanistan has the 20th highest number of women married before the age of 18 in the world, with 28% of Afghan girls married off as minors, according to Girls Not Brides.

“My mother was a child bride, and she did not meet her husband until their wedding day. By marrying me off at a young age, she was simply repeating the cycle. This tradition makes me want to raise awareness of this harmful issue with the help of millions of others around the world through my music,” says Sonita in an interview with Forus.

Witnessing her friends swiftly disappearing as they were forced to marry, Sonita wrote the song “Daughters for Sale”, which kick-started her work as a human rights activists and rapper.

“Music touches people in a way words cannot – it is deeper and more emotional. People listen to music and young people pay attention to the lyrics. Music can be a powerful way to hear important messages. That is why I always rap about things that need to change in the world, or ideas that young people need to hear, to dream big.”

Today, Sonita uses her tracks and success to give young girls self-confidence. She sings to tell: “Hold this hope in your heads and your hearts. Hold this hope for the future. Never give up.”

Nepal: Fighting “period poverty”.

As 2020 drew to a close, protesters across South Asia took to the streets and to social media, calling on their governments to end the perpetuating cycle of widespread sexual violence against women and children.

In Nepal, hundreds of activists returned to the streets after a 17-year-old girl was raped and strangled to death. Some protesters wore black over their eyes to symbolize public authorities closing their eyes to sexual violence. Activists say that although the country’s constitution guarantees equal rights to women, there is a clear disjunction between theory and practice.

“How do we make sure that there is no gap between law and social progress?” asks Jesselina Rana, a human rights lawyer, co-founder with engineer Shubhangi Rana of Pad2Go, a social enterprise focusing on menstrual health and the taboos surrounding it.

It is estimated that around 83 percent of menstruating individuals face some form of restriction or exclusion during their menstrual cycle in Nepal.

“From a very young age, menstruating individuals are made to believe that their menstrual cycle makes them impure, and it can only be talked about behind closed doors,” Jesselina explains.

With Pad2Go, Jesselina distributed over 80 sanitary napkin vending machines across Nepal. She collaborates with pad manufacturers, to provide pads at less than market rate in order to ensure affordability. She also organises discussions with both men and women to normalise conversations around menstruations.

“Nepal being a patriarchal society, men engagement is crucial to overcome social issues faced by women. Socially we need to get men into those spaces of conversation, at a young age, to make sure that everyone is part of the discussion to end the toxic cycle of gender discrimination.”

Protest in Mexico. Credit: Melanie Isahmar Torres Melo

Bolivia, Mexico: “Ni Una Menos”

Cradled in the “machismo culture”, Bolivia has one of the highest domestic violence rates against women in South America. The annual average of 110 femicides in the past 7 years persists, despite a 2013 law establishing measures to prevent and prosecute gender-based violence.

During the Covid-19 crisis, the economic consequences of the pandemic disproportionately affected Bolivian women. Government restrictions reduced access to food, aid programs did not adequately address the needs of communities, increasing their vulnerability and insecurity.

During the lockdown the slogan “Stay at Home” was widely promoted across Bolivia, yet for many women and girls victims of violence, that actually meant a very dangerous “Cállate en casa” (shut up at home), explains Iris Baptista from Red Unitas, a platform funded in 1976 that reunites 22 NGOs in Bolivia.

“Red Unitas created the campaign “SIN VIOLENCIA ES MEJOR” (Better Without Violence), to raise awareness of the fact that women are doing most of the work during the pandemic, to fulfil their role as mothers, wives and workers, yet they continue to face violence at home,” Iris explains.

But, violence against women and femicides are not just common in Bolivia—they are prevalent throughout the region. Global data is difficult to gather due to differences in reporting standards, however, the 2016 report, “A Gendered Analysis of Violent Deaths” founds that fourteen of the twenty-five countries with the highest femicide rates are Latin American.

Defined as “a pandemic within the pandemic”, gender-based violence has spiked since COVID-19 broke out. Writer Lynn Marie Stephen believes that laws and initiatives to protect women, “fail to indict the broader systems that perpetuate these problems, like social, racial, and economic inequalities, family relationships and social mores”.

“It’s not that there was less violence against women in the past, it’s just that it wasn’t made as visible as it is today,” says Melanie Isahmar Torres Melo, a photojournalist covering women issues in Puebla, Mexico.

Every day, 10 women are killed in Mexico. The number of femicides has increased by 137% in the past five years and reached its highest monthly rates in 2020. Despite this number, only 5% of all crimes committed in Mexico are punished. This dichotomy between numbers is often the result of a “single crime” vision, rather than a sociological phenomenon, linked to the idea of patriarchy and sexism.

“Most perpetuators are never caught; this has triggered ‘social anger’ around the issue of feminicides in Mexico. There is no respect for victims, they are blamed for being killed. New movements are rising led by different collectives and civil society organisations. People are taking to the streets and shouting “Ni Una Menos” no woman should be killed,” says Mela.

Uganda – creating an enabling environment for civil society

“I was arrested and shamed for leaked nudes”, model and activist Judith Heard explains. When nude pictures of her were published without her consent in 2018, she was widely criticized and was arrested under the Anti-Pornography Act. Her situation is far from unique, a survey conducted in 2016 found that 50% of Ugandan women aged between 15 and 49 has experienced violence by an intimate partner. As a result, in February 2019, Heard launched Day One Global, an advocacy organisation that seeks to curb sexual harassment and rape.

From Marion Kirabo who led a women’s protest against rising tuition fees, to Rosebell Kagumire, editor of the African Feminism digital platform opening “discussion and dialogue on feminist issues throughout the continent”, activists and “gender advocates” in Uganda, are creating innovative forms of “transnational feminism” both online and offline.

Yet, a recent report by Forus International, shows that only 1% of gender equality funding is going to women’s organizations worldwide, and that promoters of gender equality need increased protection. Even more worryingly, attacks on women organisations and civil society more generally, have been reinforced by the current COVID-19 crisis.

Overall, organizations that engage in monitoring the state’s conduct and advocate for human rights, anti-corruption, accountability, and democratic governance are experiencing growing obstacles. One of the most recent examples is the Uganda Communications Commission Guidelines for everyone posting content online, including bloggers and online news platforms, which aims to control people’s freedom of speech.

“While the Ugandan government welcomes the social services many civil society organizations provide, at the same time it feels threatened by the possibility of political mobilization and empowerment of the population that come with self-organized practices; needless to say, such threats to the government’s grip on power yield conflicts between the state and civil society actors,” according to the Uganda National NGO Forum, an umbrella organization with more than 650 member NGOs across the country.

#MarchWithUs

Despite the considerable progress, more than half of the world’s girls and women—as many as 2.1 billion people—live in countries that are not on track to reach key gender equality-related targets by 2030.

However, a new survey from Focus 2030 and Women Deliver, covering 17 countries on six continents—reveals that citizens are eager for sustained and strengthened political and financial investments to accelerate progress towards gender equality. In particular, the global public supports the need for women to play a role in all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic response, with 82% of survey respondents on average saying they believe women should be involved in the response at all levels.

To build a recovery plan and a roadmap for the future, a gender lens must be applied. With the digital campaign #MarchWithUs, Forus is taking a full month to reflect on the voices of women and non-binary activists who are on the frontline of social change. It is time to act to turn “gender lies” into gender promises.

The authors are members of Forus Communication team.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Heike Kuhn
BONN, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

Every year on March 8, the International Women’s Day is commemorated. What do women think about this famous anniversary, first honored 1911 in European countries? As I cannot speak for other women, I share with you my personal reflections on this special day, bringing in a developmental perspective.

Dr. Heike Kuhn

Women face many obstacles in their cycle of life, starting when a baby is born; in some remote areas girls do not get a birth certificate, a document anchoring fundamental rights. Coming to education, a girl is often confronted with a situation that an investment in her education seems less interesting to their parents than investing in the education of her brothers, because she will marry, look after the household and care for children or the elders of the family. Unfortunately, this kind of attitude is still prevailing in many places worldwide.

If girls are attending school in a so-called underdeveloped country, they could be confronted with missing sanitary equipment, which is of utmost importance for them, once they start menstruating and needing a safe and hygienic place. Under COVID-19, the situation has worsened, as schools were closed and remote learning is not possible without the devices or even electricity. Many girls are expected not to return to their books, becoming child laborers or brides or giving birth to several children at an early age.

But even once education is completed with a diploma or even a Ph.D., their chances on the labor market are less favorable than the men’s chances. Even when discrimination is legally forbidden, young women face job interviews in their twenties or early thirties and have to learn that employers are reluctant to hire them because they could get pregnant soon, preferring a male candidate.

However, if a young woman got the job by showing her talents, when she chooses parenthood and needs to work part-time due to the care required for her child, her career opportunities may end quite soon without flexibility.

As a childless woman she may still face the same situation where her male colleagues get promoted and earn much higher wages than she does. For years, she had seen that those men at the top preferred to remain within their traditional networks when it came to meetings, festivities, leisure time – a glass ceiling so hard to overcome if you cannot enter the places men attend.

And where are we now, 2021 AD – what did the world achieve to this date with this attitude still dominating our societies? My personal opinion: first of all we did miss so many talents by not unleashing the potential of girls and women. Terrifyingly, that we have been doing this for centuries!

But there is hope: 40 years after declaring March 8 as International Women’s Day in 1975, the UN adopted the Resolution on “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” in 2015.

Nowadays, a stand-alone goal calls all of us to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” (SDG 5), asking i.a. for ending all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere, eliminate harmful practices such as child marriage and FGM, recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work and ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life by 2030.

Evidence is calling for a different attitude: The social, economic, political and cultural achievements of women are recognized in many fields, so the struggle for equality should come to an end and women’s human rights – the same as men’s by the way – are to be respected everywhere.

On economics, there is strong evidence that societies boost when barriers to women’s economic activities are lifted.

Regarding peace negotiations, we have evidence that peace will last longer if women are among those negotiating the content of the peace talks.

Just reflect on climate change: it was Greta Thunberg, a young Swedish girl, asking the right questions and confronting leaders with scientific data, summoning them to walk the talk.

Finally, in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis we have seen testimonies of the huge share in combatting the pandemics – women working as medical doctors, nurses, teachers, looking after children and elders at home or just finding the vaccine as Professor Özlem Türeci from Biontech here in Germany did.

In conclusion: We can do better ! Together all of us, everywhere, could come to more inclusive decisions, striving for global gender equality. Girls and women must participate when decisions are being made. Recovering from COVID-19 more equally therefore it is a great chance. It is up to us letting this promise in humanity start !

The author is Head of Division 413, Education, BMZ, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Federal Republic of Germany

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Mary Robinson

By Mary Robinson
DUBLIN, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

International Women’s Day is always an occasion to celebrate strong women and an important day in the global calendar to highlight the gender injustices still lingering in every part of the world.

In 2021, our celebrations will be bittersweet as we reflect on the sacrifices and hardships women have endured amid the pandemic, but I hope it will also spur us forward to ensure women and girls shape a more equal future as the world recovers from COVID-19.

The past 12 months have seen new barriers emerge to gender equality linked to the pandemic, in addition to the pre-existing social and systemic discrimination. Across the world, women are facing increased domestic violence, unpaid care duties, unemployment and poverty.

Women stand at the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis and the jobs which have been revealed to be essential during the pandemic — from health and social care to low-paid services — are predominantly held by women.

While most of the world has implemented considerable restrictions of movement and emergency powers affecting daily life, authoritarian regimes in particular have exploited the public health crisis as an excuse to continue and even step up patterns of political repression and oppression, with women in the firing line.

One such country is Zimbabwe, where emergency powers prompted by the pandemic have been used to oppress legitimate political gatherings and protests. In 2019, I visited Zimbabwe with my fellow Elder Graça Machel, where we met with extraordinary women from all parts of society who described their pains and struggles, but also their hope of a better society. On this International Women’s Day, I reaffirm my solidarity with their struggle for rights and justice and applaud their determination to build a better future for their children.

Across the world, I have been inspired by young women activists and leaders describing themselves as “intersectional environmentalists”, who work across traditional silos to advance women’s rights and climate justice. I share their view that these goals cannot be separated from wider struggles to end other forms of discrimination, exclusion and injustice including racism, sectarianism and prejudice based on sexuality and gender.

The pandemic has indeed shone an unflattering light on global inequalities and exposed the intersectionality between gender, poverty and age.

I often think back to the impassioned speech in 2019 by the American climate activist Jamie Margolin. Jamie was only 17 years old when she testified at Capitol Hill about the climate crisis and climate injustices. She made headlines by interrupting when she felt her voice was not being listened to with the urgency and seriousness that the situation demanded. Her anger was justified, and sits in the context of decades if not centuries of women’s frustrations at being told to stay quiet when men are speaking.

Women’s voices must be heard in the debates on the global recovery from COVID-19. When women and youth come together, they can renew a country. It is absolutely crucial that they are present in a meaningful way and given a seat at the table at the COP26 climate summit later this year.

It is our responsibility as global leaders to include the crucial voices of women, youth and marginalised groups and countries. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we are inextricably interconnected.

We have seen how countries led by women have often fared better in the pandemic and demonstrated their skills and ability to effectively guide their countries in times of crisis. Yet, women are (elected) heads of state and government in only 20 countries worldwide.

We must follow the example of Finland’s Sanna Marin, New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden and Germany’s Angela Markel and demonstrate impactful feminist leadership, starting at COP26 and across the next decade in order to fully achieve the promise of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

I am also delighted that the World Trade Organization has just elected Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as its new Director-General – the first woman, and the first African, to lead the WTO in its history. I know she will be a powerful voice for equality, justice and inclusion in the critical debates ahead.

Despite the myriad of intertangled injustices that have been building up for centuries, I see many reasons to stay hopeful.

Gender inequality is not an issue that sits on its own and International Women’s Day inspires me to fight for a post-pandemic world free from all injustices, instead of going back to our old ways before COVID-19 struck.

While many of us still cannot see our children and grandchildren amid the virus, I urge you to envision and act powerfully for a safe future for them as well as for those yet to come.

I know that I stand alongside legions of women fighting for justice, be it physically or virtually, and that we all stand alert and ready to build a safe, just future for us all.

Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Chair, The Elders

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO

By Audrey Azoulay and Katrín Jakobsdóttir
PARIS and REYKJAVIK, Mar 5 2021 (IPS)

International Women’s Day pays tribute to the achievements of women worldwide and reminds us what still needs to be done for full gender equality. In 2021, we are taking stock of the many ways in which COVID-19 has disproportionately affected women and girls around the world.

The pandemic has created a new landscape. Although women have played a key role in responding to the crisis, gender inequalities have widened across the board. In education, 767 million women and girls were impacted by school closures. Eleven million may never return to class, joining the 132 million already out of school before the crisis struck. From the economic perspective, the recession is pushing 47 million more women and girls into poverty, destroying their economic independence and making them more vulnerable to gender-based discrimination and violence.

As we look at this landscape, we have to ask ourselves: if gender equality is our goal, what kind of leadership will the world need moving forward?

It is not enough to just count the number of women in the highest positions of power. No single person at the top of the pyramid can repair the damage being done to the progress that has been made in gender equality since the world adopted the Beijing Declaration on women’s rights 25 years ago.

What we need are leaders for gender equality – and we need them everywhere in our societal structures. Leaders of all ages, all gender identities and from all backgrounds. These leaders are not just agents of change, but designers of change. They lead through their example and engagement. They expose injustices and unequal opportunities. They know that gender inequalities stem from discrimination and exclusion and that it is only by lifting these barriers that real change can happen. This is feminist leadership.

Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland

Feminist leaders tackle power structures. They name and deconstruct all forms of exclusion and marginalization. They empathize with the vulnerable and voiceless, and champion their causes. They open new doors and take risks, courageously blowing the whistle on hidden injustice, and unmasking structural barriers perpetuating inequalities. They are all around us. Be it the activist defending an indigenous community, the schoolgirl mobilizing her generation to save the climate, or the poet raising her voice to promote social justice.

Feminist leaders have the courage to create, report, educate, experiment. Think about Azata Soro, actress, film director and producer who broke her silence on sexual harassment and violence in the African film industry. Think about Maria Ressa, risking jail for her brave investigative journalism. Think about Yande Banda, a tireless advocate for girls’ education in Zambia and beyond. Think about Katalin Karikó, who overcame the many challenges faced by women in science and was instrumental in developing the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. As stories like these become known, they challenge people’s intimate convictions of what is achievable and by whom. These women are, in all their diversity, feminist leaders.

However, feminist leadership is not the prerogative of women alone. Gender equality isn’t just a women’s fight, it’s a fight for social justice. Men also need to be involved in the construction of a fairer society. Many of them are showing the way. The Congolese gynecologist, Dr Denis Mukwege, won a Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy to stop rape from being used as a ‘strategy of war’. And there are many others like him, all over the world.

On this International Women’s Day, we stand committed to building future generations of feminist leaders through education. We support women who dare to create and do what is necessary to prevent them from censorship and attacks. We call on the international community to ensure the safety of women journalists who address gender inequalities through their reporting. We also stand side by side with men who dare to care and reject toxic masculinities and behaviours and open up spaces for women to influence decision-making or participate in scientific discovery and innovation.

Let us support these feminist leaders, from all walks of life. Let us take action so that women can affirm their leadership and be powerful role models for generations to come. Because gender equality not only serves to advance the cause of women – a fairer society benefits us all.

Audrey Azoulay is Director-General of UNESCO and Katrín Jakobsdóttir is Prime Minister of Iceland.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Nteranya Sanginga in the field. Credit: IITA

By Nteranya Sanginga
IBADAN, Nigeria, Mar 4 2021 (IPS)

Africa’s population will double by 2050 if growth rates continue their trajectory, but the creation of jobs is not keeping pace, with up to five times more young people seeking employment each year as there are new posts to fill. And, on top of this, the COVID pandemic is plunging Africa into its first recession in 25 years.

But once again agriculture is demonstrating its crucial importance in times of crisis. A recent World Bank survey of five African countries showed that more people are turning to agriculture because of the economic impacts of the pandemic: “There is evidence that the agriculture sector is serving as a buffer for low-income households in the region, similar to the role it played during the 2008 global economic crisis.”

In Ethiopia for example, 41% of households that received income from agriculture in the last 12 months reported a loss of income. But 85% of households experienced income loss from non-farm family business and 63% reported a decrease in remittances.

With a larger population relying on agriculture both for food security and as a source of livelihood, women and youth will play a particularly critical role in the development of farming in sub-Saharan Africa where 40% to 60% of all employed women work in agriculture.

With shifting demographics, it is important that we examine the role women and youth play in ensuring food security in sub-Saharan Africa and understand how these dynamics are changing and pinpoint the old and new challenges faced by women.

A recent study supported by the non-profit International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) found that among final year university students in north-west Nigeria, young women are just as likely to express the intention to engage in agriculture after graduation as men. The World Bank estimates, however, that currently women account for about 37% of agricultural output in Nigeria. Increased investments in boosting the position of women in agriculture could significantly benefit productivity.

CGIAR, a global partnership embracing numerous organizations engaged in food systems transformation, arguesthat attention should not rest on inflated estimates of how much food women ‘produce’, but rather on “recognition that removing barriers that limit women’s potential could have the double benefit of raising incomes of women farmers and making more food available for all”.

The barriers to a higher agricultural output cannot be attributed to a single cause. Terri Raney, editor of FAO’s The State of Food and Agriculture report, writes: “Women farmers typically achieve lower yields than men, not because they are less skilled, but because they operate smaller farms and use fewer inputs like fertilizers, improved seeds and tools.”

A 2018 World Bank report detailed gender gaps in property ownership in sub-Saharan Africa. One of its key points wasthat women are less likely to own land or housing than men.

More barriers are being raised to women’s involvement in agriculture however as, under pressure from global food security issues, governments in sub-Saharan Africa are leasing large tracts of land to foreign countries and companies. OXFAM, in a report on land-grabbing, stresses that this often comes to the detriment of rural women: “As soon as a natural resource gains commercial value on the international commodity market, control and decisions over that resource pass swiftly from rural women into the hands of men.”

While accepting that sub-Saharan Africa needs investments in agriculture, attention must be paid to how rural workers, especially women, may not benefit from these deals.

IITA has launched 80 research fellowships for young African scholars, with a specific emphasis on young female professionals and students, through a project funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence (CARE) is aimed at the development of effective agribusiness policies that engender success for young people in sub-Saharan Africa.

IFAD is increasingly focusing its resources on young people as a priority, as successful rural transformation hinges on their inclusion in the process.

IITA’s youth programs such as the IITA Youth Agripreneurs(IYA), Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment (ENABLE Youth),Young Africa Works, and Start Them Early Program (STEP) are focused on encouraging the participation and engagement of young school children and youth in agribusiness. Investing in the future of Africa’s younger generation emphasizes the importance of raising the ambition of primary and secondary school students to guarantee a food- and nutrition-secure continent. This would also be important in developing young female leaders in agriculture and how their acquired leadership skills will enable them to help lead the COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

IITA and partner organizations such as the African Development Bank, Mastercard Foundation, IFAD, and Oyo State Government, believe that poverty, hunger, and malnutrition in Africa cannot be addressed without putting into consideration the constraints faced by women and youngfarmers who in most communities provide most of the agricultural labor on the family farm and process food for markets as well as family consumption. Those constraints are a focal part of the research supported by IITA through its CARE project.

In Cameroon, Djomo Choumbou Raoul Fani examined thecontributions and competitiveness of young female farmers, and his recommendations include changes to land tenure systems, price controls and credit systems.

Oluwaseun Oginni’s research found that 43% of young people migrating to urban areas from the countryside in Nigeria are female, with their main reasons cited as the search for “a better future, educational opportunities and marriage”.

Cynthia Mkong analyzed the motivations of students choosing agriculture as their university major in Cameroon where female unemployment is double that of men. Mkong recommends focusing on policies that improve the education of girls and increase the household income at all levels. These changes are likely to reverse declining youth interest in agriculture.

IITA’s CARE project is enabling women to bring different experiences, perspectives and skills to the table that can contribute to decisions, policies and laws that work better for all. Their lead role is now ever more critical in COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

As we mark International Women’s Day on March 8, IITA is committed to fostering a greater involvement of women so that IITA can play a more significant role in research and in the world. Women are the leaders and builders we need.

The author is Director General, IITA

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Kathleen Sherwin
NEW YORK, Mar 4 2021 (IPS)

In 2020, progress on gender equality stalled or regressed in many countries in large part because of the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent analysis, by 2021, around 435 million girls and women will be living on less than $1.90 a day, including 47 million pushed into poverty as a result of the pandemic. Global lockdowns contributed to a surge of gender-based violence worldwide, and estimates show that sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), the bedrock of gender equality, have been severely disrupted, resulting in an additional 49 million women at risk of experiencing an unmet need for modern contraception. Our most pressing global issues have seldom been so daunting, and fault lines in existing social, political, and economic systems have never been so deep.

Kathleen Sherwin

On this International Women’s Day, we’re calling on governments, the private sector, and civil society leaders to firmly position gender equality as our collective roadmap for coordinated action on COVID-19 and sustainable development. As essential first steps, together, we must prioritize collecting and using disaggregated data, securing the full and effective participation of girls and women in all aspects of decision-making, and investing more in gender equality. Sustainable progress toward a world that works for everyone depends on it.

Decision-makers must collect and use disaggregated data to set equitable action in motion.

Girls and women are too often invisible to decision-makers because data and knowledge about them is either incomplete or missing. To create policies that advance gender equality by addressing the disproportionate impacts of global challenges on girls, women, and underrepresented populations, we first need to invest in disaggregated data to get a full, intersectional picture of the uneven impacts of global issues.

In August 2020, in partnership with Focus 2030, we set out to do just that, conducting a first-of-its-kind multi-national survey — in 17 countries, representing half of the world’s population — to better understand the impacts of COVID-19 on girls and women, and global public opinion and expectations for policymaking on gender equality. We learned that girls and women are shouldering the worst of the pandemic’s impact: across 13 of 17 countries surveyed, women report experiencing greater emotional stress and mental health challenges than men, and taking on an even greater share of household tasks.

Girls and women must be fully and effectively engaged in charting our shared path forward.

Building a sustainable future for all requires the full participation — and potential — of girls and women in all aspects of our international and domestic response to global issues, and the realization of that potential depends on their health and rights. In fact, we now know that 82% of citizens globally believe women must be involved in all aspects of COVID-19 global health response and recovery efforts.

Crucially, we must engage today’s youth, who will ultimately bear the consequences of our action — or inaction — and who have the highest expectations for more government funding for gender equality. 75% of female respondents aged 18-24 expect their government to spend more on gender equality, and over 94% of young men and women are ready to take personal action to make sure that they do.

Gender equality is what citizens want, and it’s what the world needs to build a healthier future for all.

The resounding call for action on gender equality, matched by robust funding and accountability mechanisms, holds across countries surveyed for men and women, young and old alike. Over 80% of citizens globally want their government to invest more to promote gender equality, and are ready to act — from the way they vote, to the products they buy — to make sure that this happens. The resounding majority of citizens also believe that increasing access to SRHR is a top priority for immediate government action.

As governments, the private sector, and civil society leaders come together on International Women’s Day, and during upcoming global fora including the 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women and the Generation Equality Forum to discuss how to transform words into action that improves the health of all people and the planet, ensuring that gender equality is our shared roadmap for responding to global challenges is crucial to sustainable progress now and in years to come. It’s what citizens want, and it’s what the world needs to build a healthier, more gender-equal future.

¹ People of underrepresented sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or expressions, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC), and those who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and oppression.

The author is Interim President & CEO, Women Deliver

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

The COVID-19 pandemic (henceforth pandemic) has women particularly hard. In almost all countries, women constitute the bulk of the labour force in the service sector, which was hardest hit by the pandemic. Furthermore, they also represent a disproportionate share of the work force in particularly vulnerable sectors such as health care. Women also have disproportionate if not sole responsibility for home work including taking care of children.

Raghbendra Jha

Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that during the pandemic, casualization of the work force has increased substantially. Because of their filial responsibilities, women are disproportionately represented in the causal work force. This has meant a further loss in incomes for many women.

When analysing women’s attainments it is helpful to view it as a sequence of two steps. First, one could look at indicators of human development followed by women’s actual attainments in terms of wages, salaries and representation in key positions.

Indicators of human development disaggregated by gender is available in the Gender Development Index (GDI) computed and published annually by the UNDP as part of its Human Development Report.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-development-index-gdi

The GDI views disparities women and men in three different dimensions of human development: health, schooling and measures of living standards. The GDI first calculates Human Development Indicators using these three measures for both women and men separately and then takes the ratio of the index for women to the value of the index for men. The closer this ratio is to 1, the more equal is society for both genders.

Every year the UNDP computes this index for 167 countries which are classified into five groups based on the absolute deviation from gender parity in HDI values. This means that grouping takes equally into consideration gender gaps favoring males, as well as those favoring females.

The latest GDI for the world as whole is 0.943, with HDI value of 0.714 for females and 0.757 for males. Women marginally outperform men in the area of life expectancy; they have equal attainment as men in expected years of schooling but fall behind men in key areas of mean level of schooling and gross national income per capita by gender.

Although the GDI is a useful measure, of how much women are lagging behind their male counterparts and how much women need to catch up within each dimension of human development, there are a number of areas in which they are unable to capture key underlying trends. For instance, in the area of nutrition within the family standard measures assume that there is equal access for males and females within the household. Recent literature emphasizes that this may not be the case. Indeed, female children may be discriminated against in comparison to their male counterparts.
https://academic.oup.com/wbro/article/10/1/1/1684910?login=true

Moreover, in some countries although enrolment of females in primary is quite robust, secondary female enrolment in school drops off. See chapter 8 of
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781349953417

In many countries female students are under-represented in key disciplines of study such as science and mathematics and over-represented in less remunerative areas of study.

When we analyse the second step – women’s actual economic attainment – the conclusions are even less sanguine. For example, in the case of Australia (a country with a GDI of 0.976) women are underrepresented in almost all leadership and management positions.
https://www.wgea.gov.au/women-in-leadership

According to the latest data, women hold only 32.5 % of key management positions, 28.1 % of directorships, 18.3 % of CEOs, and 14.6 % of board chairs.

An international comparison of women’s attainments in some key countries is available in:
https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-management/

Such trends have caused many observers to feel that women face a broken rung in the ladder for leadership in organisations.
https://pragmaticthinking.com/blog/women-in-leadership-statistics/

As if such results were not enough, there is compelling evidence to suggest that men are paid more than women (gender gap)
https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/

In recent years, although the gender pay gap has narrowed this progress has now stalled.
https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/

With this as background, one comes to the conclusion that women are economically worse off than men largely because women’s work is not fully priced in the marketplace. From the family to the frontiers in science, technology, politics and the armed forces women provide absolutely critical services, but these services are not always valued adequately.

The primary reason why such gaps have persisted for so long is attitudinal. From the household to the board room women face attitudes that are inimical to their interests. So, along with legislative and other measures to ensure equality for women all sections of all societies must work on their attitudes towards women.

The author is Professor of Economics and Executive Director, Australia South Asia Research Centre, Australian National University

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Credit: The UN Office at Vienna (UNOV)

By Mwanahamisi Singano and Ben Phillips
NAIROBI / ROME, Mar 3 2021 (IPS)

The greatest danger to the effectiveness of International Women’s Day is that it has become respectable. It is time for it to be day of good trouble again.

It’s become somewhat of a tradition for respectable International Women’s Day commentaries to repeat three establishment talking points: first, that the world is making progress but not fast enough; second, a set of comparisons between men as single group (earning more, represented more, accessing more) with women as single group (earning less, represented less, accessing less); and third, an appeal to those in power to put it right.

This Women’s Day we need to smash all three of those traditions.

We need to stop saying that the world is making continuous progress on gender equality. The COVID-19 crisis is seeing women’s rights go into reverse.

Women’s jobs are being lost at much faster rate than men’s; women are shouldering most of the increased burden of unpaid care for children and elders; girls have been taken out of school more than boys; domestic violence has shot up, and it’s harder for women to get away.

And the fact that as soon as the crisis happened women were pushed so far back shows how insecure and insubstantial were the “good times” – if you are allowed to keep holding onto an umbrella only until it rains, then you don’t really own that umbrella.

The pandemic laid bare the structural inequalities and dysfunctional social and political systems crafted to serve endless wealth accumulation of a powerful few (men) while leaving billions of people in poverty and hopelessness.

The idea of progress has lulled the conversation into an idea that we only need to speed up: it’s now clear that to get to equality we need to change course.

We have to go behind the comparisons between what men and what women have and speak plainly about the intersecting inequalities of race, nationality and class that compound the experience of women.

To give one example, in December last year the US figures showed 140,000 job losses. Then it was revealed that all these job losses were women (men had in fact net gained 16,000 jobs, and women net lost 156,000).

So, the story was that women as a group were losing to men as a group. But then it was revealed that all these job losses amongst women could be accounted for by jobs lost by women of colour – white women had net gained jobs!

As James Baldwin noted, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

To give another example, every year the annual United Nations meeting on women’s rights – the Commission on the Status of Women – meets in New York (15-26 March 2021) , and every year there is hugely disproportionate representation by women from the Global North and by women representing global North-led organisations.

This is exacerbated by the fact that because the meeting is in New York, the travel cost burden is much higher for women from the Global South, and the US Government needs to approve who can come, and it refuses or fails to approve in time visas for women from the Global South in far higher numbers than women from the Global North.

And the visas for women from developing countries that the US government least often approves for the CSW and other New York gatherings? Those of poor women, rural women, slum dwelling women, migrant women, women with chronic illnesses, women who have been in conflict with the law, women sex workers – the more socially excluded, the more likely you are to be literally excluded.

At last year’s CSW, the Covid crisis saw this reach a peak, with only New York based representatives allowed to participate. At this year’s CSW, it has gone all virtual – great in theory, but it remains fixed to a New York time zone only, forcing participants in Asia to take part through their night or opt out.

Next year it is likely to go back to being live, and the US is likely to require vaccine passports – which 9 in 10 people in the Global South will not have, because the US and other Global North countries are blocking Southern companies from making generic versions of the vaccines.

Once again, women from the Global South will be excluded from the meeting about exclusion, will have no equality in the meeting about how to win equality.

Equality for women will only be realised when all the forms of exclusion holding women back are challenged. When several African countries introduced night-time curfews in COVID-19, they made exemptions for private ambulances, but did not make allowances for those taking informal private transport to hospital – which is how the majority of expectant women, who cannot afford private ambulances, get there.

Likewise, women experiencing domestic violence could leave their houses at night if they went with the police, but if they lacked the social capital to be able to have the police come to accompany them (in other words, anyone not well-off), and they tried to make their own way to a shelter, they found themselves stopped by law enforcement for being out, illegally – indeed, many women told Femnet of fleeing the beatings of their husband to then meet the beatings of the cops.

These were not challenges well foreseen or planned for by well-off men and women who dominate policy making.

It is not enough for the men in power to be persuaded to open a narrow gate in the fortress of patriarchy, through which a small group of the most well-connected or respectable women can slip through to join them.

For all women in their diversity to be able to access decent jobs, equal rights and equal power, the walls must be brought tumbling down. None of this will be given, it will only be won.

As Audre Lorde set out, our task is “to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.

For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Respectability isn’t working. Equality requires good trouble.

Mwanahamisi Singano is Head of Programmes at the African feminist network FEMNET; Ben Phillips* is the author of How to Fight Inequality

*The link to Ben Phillip’s book, How to Fight Inequality, in paperback, hardback or ebook, here – or at: https://www.amazon.com/How-Fight-Inequality-That-Needs/dp/1509543090

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

As a member of the second wave of the feminist movement who were also the first generation of women to receive positions of leadership, I recall the prejudices and biases that framed our experience. Women rarely were put in charge of “hard” core issues, only what were termed “soft” ones in keeping with their role as nurturer and carer. When they were present in the Board room, they were often silent. When they spoke, they were inevitably spoken over. It was the exceptional woman who could navigate the corridors of corporate culture, male expectations, and a workplace that was unsympathetic to her dual burden.

Radhika Coomaraswamy

Over the last half century things have changed. There have been many impressive women political leaders and CEOs of companies. From Chancellor Angela Merkel to Indra Nooyi, young girls now have role models that have reached the top of their profession. And yet, according to the Institute for Women’s Leadership, globally women hold just 24% of senior leadership positions. Women are only 4% of the S&P top 500 companies. There is still a great deal to be done and the mobilization to get more women into leadership positions should not falter.

As we watch women take their rightful place in the world we can ask ourselves, “is their a distinctive style of women’s leadership”? In the past, many doubters of women’s leadership qualities used to point to women leaders such as Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher as being indistinguishable from the men. But the recent pandemic has brought to the fore a whole group of women leaders who showed us things could be done differently.

Jacinda Arden of New Zealand, President Tsai Ing Wen of Taiwan and Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir of Iceland, the next new generation of women leaders handled the corona crisis in a unique and successful way exposing the inadequacies of what is termed the “strong man” adulation of the decade before. In dealing with the pandemic, they were low-key, focused on the delivery of services, clearly setting goals and standards and staying away from brinkmanship. Interestingly for these young women leaders the family is a natural part of the narrative, giving birth while in office or enjoying their husbands as equal partners in taking care of the children.

But the hope for anyone interested in women’s rights must be the very youthful leaders coming from Generation Z. Globally connected, passionate in their causes and armed with technology and social media they are ready to make sweeping changes. Malala was the first to occupy the global stage with her plea for girl’s education, a millennial goal that has actually been achieved. Then we have Greta Thunberg whose unflinching dedication to the cause of climate change and the preservation of the environment has inspired millions of young people

One such person is Disha Annappa Ravi, a young campaigner in Bangalor, India who was arrested for sharing a toolkit to assist the organizers of the farmers movement that was making demands of the government. Defiant in court she said, “if highlighting farmers’ protests globally is sedition, I am better off in jail.” The Court, inspired by this young woman leader, said in its powerful judgment, “Citizens are conscience keepers of government in any democratic nation. They cannot be put behind bars simply because they choose to disagree with State policies.” It is these young women leaders in many countries around the world who may help us fulfill the many dreams and visions spelt out by generations of women leaders who have fought for equal rights and social justice.

The author is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. In 2017, after atrocities against the Rohingya people, she was appointed a Member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Credit: Equality Now, Tara Carey

By Antonia Kirkland
NEW YORK, Mar 2 2021 (IPS)

When the United Nations was founded in 1945, the principle of equality for all – regardless of sex, race, language, or religion – was enshrined in the organization’s Charter.

More than seventy-five years have passed, and during the intervening decades, the UN has played a leading role in advancing gender equality around the world. But there is one significant way in which the UN, through the General Assembly of member states and the Security Council, has failed to live up to its stated ambition, and that is in the selection of its own leader.

To date, there have been nine UN Secretary-Generals. Not one of them has been a woman.

I work at Equality Now, a global women’s rights organization that has been at the forefront of campaigning for a woman Secretary-General since 1996. Twenty-five years ago, there were numerous suitably qualified women who could have fulfilled the role commendably, but none were selected.

And up until the most recent election, hardly any women were even nominated.

In recent years, sentiment that the appointment of a female leader is overdue has swelled and become mainstream. In the 2016 campaign to choose the current head, seven of the final thirteen candidates were women – unprecedented in the UN’s history.

Thanks to successful advocacy by the civil society coalition 1 for 7 Billion and others, a new, more transparent selection process was introduced, including live televised conversations with the candidates.

Alongside this was the “Campaign to Elect a Woman Secretary-General” (WomanSG campaign) as well as a Group of Friends initiative led by Colombia, which also championed the appointment of a woman.

Although it was abundantly clear how eminently qualified the women contenders were, and despite their impressive resumes and breadth of appeal and experience, once again it was a man who was chosen for the top job.

When António Guterres was selected as the incoming Secretary-General, feminists within and outside the UN developed a series of action points for him to advance gender equality within the organization.

This included the need to increase gender parity across UN institutions; provide adequate financing to achieve gender equality within the UN; and strengthen UN Women. The importance of working with women’s rights organizations and holding member states accountable to commitments to achieve gender equality was also highlighted. Encompassing all this was the call to lead by example.

Advances and shortcomings under Guterres’ leadership

During Guterres’ time in office, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) has been grading his performance in feminist leadership. Their fourth and latest report gives him a “B” and applauds the great strides made in reaching gender parity within the UN’s senior management under his tenure.

However, a neglected concern highlighted in the ICRW report as requiring urgent addressing is sexual harassment and abuse within the UN work environment.

The issues of lack of independence and the accountability gap – acknowledged by even the UN internal justice system itself – cannot remain side-lined if the Secretary-General’s “zero-tolerance policy” on sexual harassment is to be achieved. Member states should support this work as part of their commitment to ending violence against women.

Such commitments must extend to cyberspace. Online sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment have grown exponentially since the onset of the pandemic and there is no reason to think the UN virtual workplace is immune.

Rule of law must be applied in the digital sphere, with protective and preventive measures enacted and enforced to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, including online sexual exploitation and abuse.

UN agencies, governments, big tech, and civil society should work together to develop and adopt international standards that will provide a guiding framework for international cooperation. Incorporated within this is the enactment of laws at a national level that address the gendered and multi-jurisdictional nature of gender-based cybercrime.

Positive law reform at the national level must be encouraged and invested in by and through the UN. Member States that fail to live up to their obligations should be held to account.

Governments must protect women’s and girls’ rights in all spaces and relationships, public or private, to tackle their unequal status. This includes amending or repealing gender discriminatory family laws that underpin economic disadvantage, exploitation and violence, preventing women and girls from participating wholly in society and reaching their full potential.

The Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law, launched by Equality Now and partners in March 2020, aims specifically at the reform of sex discriminatory family laws, one of the biggest obstacles to achieving gender equality.

The UN must actively encourage Member States to repeal or amend all discriminatory laws, implement progressive legal and policy frameworks, and adopt and enforce constitutional provisions that guarantee equality without exception.

A positive demonstration of this can be found in Sweden’s feminist foreign policy action plan for 2021.

Advancing women’s leadership

Over the past decade, impressive gains have been achieved in progressing women’s leadership. A growing number of women are being elected to political office, with various women heads of state receiving praise for their effective handling of the pandemic.

Recently, high profile glass ceilings were shattered with the election of Vice-President Kamala Harris in the USA, and the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Director General of the World Trade Organisation.

It is time for the UN to follow suit by appointing a woman to its highest position. Focusing now on the selection of the next UN Secretary-General is timely considering the priority theme of the 2021 UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW65) is: “Women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.”

In addition, the Generation Equality Forum will be launching an Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership.

Member states should do all they can to live up to commitments made over a quarter of a century ago in the Beijing Platform for Action – to nominate women for senior leadership posts who will promote gender equality, including within the UN itself.

Representation matters at the global level too. Now more than ever, the world would benefit from having a feminist woman as UN Secretary-General, governing at the helm of the most important international body we have.

In numerous countries, COVID-19 has weakened social protection systems and pushed many women and girls into extreme poverty, further widening the pre-existing gender poverty gap. Concerning reports of increases in child marriage, girls dropping out of school, and domestic violence are just a few examples of how women and girls are being adversely impacted by the pandemic.

The UN must continue to champion gender equality as integral to COVID-19 recovery plans and challenge regressive forces attacking women’s rights. This requires member states further strengthening international efforts to empower women economically and socially, directing financial support to boost women’s rights movements, and ensuring feminists from the grassroots through to the highest levels of governance are equal participants in policy-making and implementation.

It seems that the President of the General Assembly is starting the process of selecting the next General-Secretary in the right direction. It is now up to individual UN Member States to nominate strong women candidates, as they were encouraged to do the last time and which was enshrined in a 2015 resolution.

With continued transparency and input from civil society helping to curtail opportunities for old-boy network backroom deals, a woman Secretary-General is much more likely to be selected.

While Guterres has said he is available to continue for a second and final five year term, he must participate fully in the upcoming selection process as if his re-appointment was not a foregone conclusion (as has been the case in past re-elections).

Furthermore, as a self-proclaimed “proud feminist” he should do all he can to pave the way for women to be nominated and selected by member states when he does hand over the reins. To a feminist woman.

The author is Global Lead on Legal Equality and Access to Justice at Equality Now*.

For media enquiries and interview requests please contact Sr. Media Manager Tara Carey at tcarey@equalitynow.org; +44 (0)7971 556 340 (WhatsApp)

*Equality Now is an international human rights organization that works to protect and promote the rights of women and girls around the world by combining grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy. Its international network of lawyers, activists, and supporters achieve legal and systemic change by holding governments responsible for enacting and enforcing laws and policies that end legal inequality, sex trafficking and exploitation, sexual violence, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage.

For details of its current campaigns, please visit www.equalitynow.org and on Facebook @equalitynoworg and Twitter @equalitynow.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

18 Sep, 2019 Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan at the People's Summit on Climate, Rights and Human Survival in New York, USA. Credit: Tracie Williams / Greenpeace

By Jennifer Morgan
NEW YORK, Mar 1 2021 (IPS)

The climate crisis doesn’t stop for anyone or anything, not even the pandemic that has forced billions of us to radically overhaul our lives. And like the pandemic, climate change has no nationality, agenda or political affiliation.

Both exist to spread where, when and how they can. Another stark similarity is that the impacts of COVID-19, just like the climate emergency, do not treat us equally, as those who self-identify as female are hit the hardest.

The pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on all who regard themselves as girls, women and womxn, as well as minorities, those with disabilities, older members of our communities, refugees, migrants and Indigenous Peoples.

So much so, the UN Secretary General António Guterres last month said progress on gender equality has been set back years, and within his 2021 priorities described achieving gender equality as “the greatest human rights challenge.”

Deep rooted social injustices, from worker rights to gender inequality, go hand in hand with the climate emergency. Climate denial, like prejudice, is certainly not a victimless crime.

Even though the climate crisis is global, it is impacting low and middle income countries the worst, with self-identifying females the most affected. When climate-fueled extreme weather events strike, it’s those who deny science and block climate action who must answer to the victims on the frontlines.

Though we are in the throes of these interconnected health, environmental, economic and equality crises, creating a better world for all is still within reach. Together, we can move forward on an inclusive green path to recovery, where social justice is our guiding principle.

This means profound systems change with new rules and investments, and not the failed racist patriarchal polluting status quo being merely tweaked. A fairer, healthier, wealthier and safer world for all people is exactly what a transformation in line with 1.5°C – the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal – means.

And it’s what publics across the planet want. In Japan, 60% of people want transformational economic change. While in India, Mexico, China, Brazil, South Africa and beyond, support for a green economic recovery is at 80% or higher.

Over 1.2 million people from across the world have joined campaigns at Greenpeace, Avaaz and others, supporting the call for a bold, green and just recovery in Europe.

A green and just recovery to COVID-19 is the opportunity for governments to kickstart a new economy that helps solve the climate and biodiversity crisis, while ensuring fair wages, employment protections and social safety nets for everyone, specifically for women, womxn and girls.

And as I wrote last year for the Inter Press Service, equity across the world and spectrum would lead to more life satisfaction, better security and economies, and more sustainable solutions to climate change, and now the pandemic.

Millions of people who identify as female have managed to pull together time and again in the name of justice and for saving our beautiful planet. Since the beginning of Greenpeace 50 years ago this year, women have been central, with the organisation co-founded by the extraordinary Dorothy Stowe.

1 Jan, 1996 Greenpeace co-founder, Dorothy Stowe, at a Commemorative Greenpeace Plaque Unveiling in Vancouver, Canada. Credit: Greenpeace

While they have not always been recognised or nurtured as much as they deserved, self-identifying females are very much a leading force within the organisation now and will be going forward.

They are the captains and crew of our ships, executive directors, scientists, cleaners, photographers. They are our campaigners and activists who put their bodies on the line to demand a green, just and peaceful world. Inclusivity is one of our values because there can be no green peace without gender equality.

As Greenpeace nears the 50th anniversary, it is vital we don’t spend too much time looking back instead of forwards. Where we’re going, what we need to do, and the organisation we must continue becoming.

Amplifying the voices of the most marginalised and vulnerable, while boosting their access to opportunities and platforms, is central to the mission of Greenpeace.

29 Feb, 2020 Stolen Fish in West Africa – Stand 4 Women campaign. Joal and Bargny, Senegal.
Fishmeal and fish oil factories in West Africa are putting at risk food security and livelihood of up to 40 million people. These factories swallow enormous amounts of fresh fish, that the local population need, to feed fish in aquaculture industries, pigs and chickens and even pets in Europe and Asia. Now people are rising up on International Women’s day against the factories. Credit: Julien Flosse / Greenpeace

Like in West Africa, where female fish processors have been standing strong for years against fishmeal and fish oil factories taking away the fish on which their local communities depend.

While they are struggling to make ends meet with few employment rights, the fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO) industry, owned by investors outside Africa, booms. This, as well as overfishing by destructive foreign fishing vessels, is threatening food security, jobs and social stability in the region with women most impacted.

These female fish processors want their West African governments to legally and formally recognise them in the same way as other people doing in any job.

Globally, our oceans are suffering from the plunder of overfishing and illegal industrial fishing as well as serious pollution. We need to stop wrecking our oceans now to safeguard food security and jobs for millions of people, like the West African female fish processors and their communities, and to save our marine environment.

One billion people rely on fish as their main source of animal protein, according to the World Health Organization, while it is estimated that 43 million people are facing food insecurity in West Africa – 20 million of them due to the socio-economic impact of COVID-19.

What we are seeing today with the pandemic and the climate emergency, like with previous crises, is the worsening of the already disadvantaged position of women and womxn in the labour market, alongside the burden of unpaid domestic and care work, and gender-based violence.

Despite the many and intersectional challenges females – as well as non-binary people – face, there are also many remarkable change-makers. From the Nigerian eco-feminist Oladosu Adenike advocating for the restoration of Lake Chad, to Tanya Fields of the BLK ProjeK, who focuses on food justice and economic development for women and youth of colour in the US, to the matriarchs of Wet’suwet’en resiliently opposing the Coastal Gas Link pipeline while protecting their elders from the virus.

As much as it must be in everyone’s interest to provide the COVID-19 vaccine to all people, it must be in everyone’s interest to find real solutions to the climate and gender inequality crises.

No person is safe until all people are safe, just as no country is safe from the virus and the climate emergency until all countries are safe from COVID-19 and the climate crisis. Tackling the pandemic, climate change and gender inequality are urgent priorities, not competing ones.

Global cooperation at unprecedented levels is required to overcome these challenges, as is the brave active citizenship we have seen – and continue to see – by all who self-identify as female; they must be central to solving the climate emergency and overcoming the pandemic.

This year, we have an opening to not just move beyond the ravaging storm of the pandemic, but to do it in a way where we steadily set sail to a fairer, greener and healthier future with the wind at our backs, making some waves on our voyage of victory.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Leituala Kuiniselani Toelupe Tago-Elisara
SUVA, Fiji, Mar 1 2021 (IPS)

An often quoted indigenous reference in the Samoan language is, O le ala i le pule o le tautua, literally translated, “the pathway to leadership is through service” because to be able to lead is to be willing to serve.

Since world leaders endorsed the blueprint for gender equality in Beijing 1995, women in leadership has dominated in numerous conversations and forums in terms of the need to increase women in leadership as a critical factor to achieve gender equality. Many of the perspectives shared, are about facilitating opportunities for women, advancing women in fields dominated by men, particularly in the sciences, and achieving equality in decision-making. Women in leadership has become a popular discourse from development, to academia, to politics, to science and innovation; and organisations across all sectors are recognizing the importance of inclusivity and equity for achieving sustainable development.

The 2020 Pacific review of the Beijing Platform for Action, 25 years after Beijing, highlighted that Pacific states still have a long way to go in achieving balanced representation of women in national parliaments. With the exception of the French Territories where equitable representation of women in their legislative assemblies is ensured by the French ‘parity law’, women’s representation in national parliaments across the region is shockingly low and temporary special measures (TSMs) are only used in a few states. At all levels, and across all nations, gender power dynamics disadvantage women as decision makers; and socio-cultural norms in the Pacific see men as the ‘natural’ spokespeople for families, communities and governments. That said, the report also noted an increase in women’s participation in all levels of decision-making at community levels, in public service and in civil society organisations. This raises a number of challenging questions.

Leituala Kuiniselani Toelupe Tago-Elisara

So, what can we do and what does this mean for Women in Leadership? The answer lies in our ongoing concerted efforts to have women at the table with an equal voice to speak for the 50% of our population. We will keep pushing to have women leaders at the table who understand women’s lived experiences and needs, and that these are translated into decision-making on resource allocation and prioritisation. We need women who lead, knowing that they have families and communities to attend to after work, and appreciate the value of unpaid care work. More importantly, we need the same women leaders at the table to share those perspectives with their men counterparts, to affect change that will transform societies and enable positive and inclusive change for gender equality at all levels in society and across all locations – urban, rural and remote.

Our unprecedented experience with COVID-19 has changed the way we live, the way we work and certainly the way we exercise leadership and deliver service. It has reminded us that with border closures and travel restrictions, we need to be searching within our own borders and within our own societies for solutions. One of these solutions is for us to utilize and capitalize on the often-untapped skills, knowledge and expertise of women, to generate solutions for our development challenges. The role of women, as we are seeing in recovery efforts across the Pacific, is a testament to the service they continue to provide for our families and our communities. It is evidenced in women’s resilience and their significant capabilities in managing our communities and societies through multiple disasters and climatic events over the years, and through the multitude of cultural and customary obligations that we have all lived through, and will continue to live through. It is a reflection of women’s knowledge of our Pacific ways of knowing and ways of being, gathered and passed down from generation to generation.

The impacts of COVID-19 are huge and as a region and as a people, it will take some time to navigate our way through these impacts towards full recovery. However, if there is one learning that I take away from this crisis, it is our ability to remain resilient and to continue to serve each other and our people, with our women holding the fort in all our societies and communities across the Pacific Ocean, through their ongoing service. It is a manifestation and a living example of leadership through service, because to be able to lead is to be willing to serve, and being able to serve is being able to lead, and such is the spirit of Pacific women in leadership.

Leituala Kuiniselani Toelupe Tago-Elisara is Regional Director, Polynesia Regional Office Pacific Community (SPC)

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt: