PLATFORM NEWS                                               

The Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform

Awarded UN Special Consultative Status in 1999

58 Howard Street, Belfast BT1 6PJ

niwep@btconnect.com

www.niwep.org.uk

Working towards equality and peace for women on a local, national, European and international level

Local

CAJ Recruiting a New Director

It is sad news that Maggie Beirne the Director of CAJ has decided to return to London sometime next spring for personal reasons, and for Maggie this feels like the opportune moment as she has achieved success in bringing the CAJ through a difficult period of transition.

We wish Maggie every success for the future.  Her support and expertise will be missed by the women’s sector.

The recruitment process has begun and details of the post and the application process are available from CAJ’s website or on request from the office.  The deadline for the receipt of applications is Friday 19 October and interviews will take place on 9 November 2007.

For an application form and related materials please contact:  Recruitment officer, Committee on the Administration of Justice, 45-47 Donegall St, Belfast, BT1 2BR Tel: +44-(0)28-90961122  

Fax: +44-(0)28-90246706 Email: recruitment@caj.org.uk http://www.caj.org.uk

What Really Matters to Rural Women?

Women into Politics are holding a conference for rural women on the 15 October 2007 in the Glenavana Hotel, Cookstown from 9.30 am – 3 pm

There will be four workshops at the conference which will hear the view of rural women on developing diverse communities, talking mental health, engaging and including young women and rural housing and planning. 

Registration forms and pre registration workshops can be found on WIPs website www.wip.org

Training Education and Development

Community Dialogue work in partnership with local and international civic society organisations and governments.  They offer a range of well established and popular courses and have focused recently on ‘A Shared Future’ for Northern Ireland following the devolved Government.

Community Dialogue training, education and development programmes for 2007/8 are now available on their website www.communitydialogue.org

European

High Level Group for Gender Mainstreaming

Portugal hosted a meeting of the High-level group for Gender Mainstreaming on September 10th and 11th chaired by the European Commission.  This is a group made up of high level representatives responsible for gender equality in the member states.  Among others the group’s tasks are the strategic planning of activities, measures and policies in this area.

In this context during the two days the group discussed the state of play of policies on Gender Equality at the EU level, namely the preparation of the European Commission’s Annual Report on equality Between Women and Men (to be presented in the Spring Council of March 2008).   It also assessed the implementation of measures to promote Gender Equality following the “Roadmap for Equality between Women and Men (2006-2010)” of the European Commission and the “European Pact for Gender Equality” (approved at the Spring Council March 2006) as well as in the framework of the “Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs” in the light of the preparation of the new cycle 2008-2011.

At the meeting the Portuguese Presidency also presented for discussion a report on indicators on “Women and Poverty” as a follow-up of the Beijing Platform for Action.   In order to monitor this reality there is a need to develop adequate indicators and all member-states have had the opportunity to present their contributions.

The final report elaborated by Portugal will be presented for approval at the EPSCO (Employment and Social Policy) Council in Brussels, 5-6 December. Once approved, the indicators will be integrated in the EU statistical instruments enabling comparative analysis and adequate policy making.

It is relevant to mention the strategic importance of such indicators considering that the phenomenon of poverty in not gender neutral and, in fact, it affects more women than men. The analysis of poverty has to consider factors other than economic deprivation such as education, health, housing, labour market, social protection, family and private life as well as security and participation in the public sphere.

Also at this meeting it was highlighted the relevance of the Trio of Presidencies (Germany, Portugal and Slovenia) that for the first time developed an 18 month Programme enabling continuity in policies and longer-term results. Therefore, Germany had the opportunity to provide information on the outcomes of its Presidency and Portugal and Slovenia could present their Presidencies programme for the area of Gender Equality.

A worthy to mention outcome of this joint work is the Trio of Presidencies Declaration “Towards Gender Equality in the European Union” signed during the German Presidency and that will have a follow-up during the Portuguese Presidency

European Parliament delegation in Lisbon to Discuss Gender Issues

A delegation of the Committee on Women’s Rights of the European Parliament, led by its Chairwoman, Anna Zaborska, was in Lisbon on 13-14 September.   They were there to meet representatives of the EU Presidency, members of the Portuguese Parliament and members of various NGOs to discuss issues related to equal treatment between women and men, reconciliation of professional and family lives, raise awareness of domestic violence and trafficking in women and children.

Erasing the Gender Gap on Corporate Boards

In its 2007 study, “Women Directors in the Fortune Global 200 Companies” released in Berlin at the June Global Summit of Women, Corporate Women Directors International reported that only 11.2% of corporate board seats are held by women in the 200 largest companies in the world.  This paltry number does not reflect women’s important role as major stakeholders as workers, consumers, and investors in these companies.  Norway has taken an innovative approach to addressing the lack of female board representation in Norwegian corporations by passing an innovative law in 2006 requiring that 40% of corporate board seats must be given to women within a two year period.  Since then, other countries – Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, Spain – have passed different versions of this model with varying percentages as requirements.

How is Norway progressing towards its goal?  According to the Center for Corporate Diversity in Oslo, 60% of publicly listed companies have reached this target.  At present, 80% of Norwegian companies have women on their boards, and it is expected that 90% will be reached by autumn 2007.  The number of companies with no female directors has decreased considerably from 190 in March 2007 to 94 in July.  What these results show is that the law has had a positive impact in accelerating the inclusion of women into corporate boards.  At present, Norway has the highest proportion of women corporate directors than in any other country in the world.  By the end of 2007, all of its companies must meet the 40% target for female directors, and those companies who do not comply face the threat of being dissolved by the government.  Given Norway’s success in implementing a difficult mandate, several countries are now looking at the possibility of replicating this policy to establish board diversity in their companies.  (Source: Center for Corporate Diversity)

Increase Women’s Role in Peacemaking

The former President of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga stressed to the Women’s Affairs and Gender Equality Committee in Brussels in June of the need to increase women’s role in peace making, due to their “completely different perception of armed conflicts.”  She called MEPs to take action and underlined that in the resolution of injustices in the societies, women have to be involved.

In her speech Ms Kumaratunga pointed out that conflict and conflict resolution are among the most important subjects on the world agenda today.  She regretted that the role of women in peacemaking has not been sufficient, saying that “when it comes to peace process, the men quietly ease their way up there and leave women behind.” She continued: “thus I ask you – why not us?”

Ms Kumaratunga suggested that if the EU undertakes peacekeeping missions, women should be proposed as members and leaders of peacekeeping units because traditionally “their role has been one of reconciliation.”  She also indicated that “people are not born terrorists” and that terrorism arises from non-resolution of perceived injustices in the society.  “In the resolution of these injustices we have to involve women”, the former President stressed.  She called on the European women to take the initiative.  Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was the President of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2005.

International

Strengthening the United Nations Women’s Rights Architecture

The United Nation’s High Level Panel on System wide Coherence released its final report on UN infrastructure in November 2006.  In its report, the Panel made important recommendations about strengthening the women’s rights architecture of the UN which, if endorsed by governments during the 2007 or an upcoming General Assembly session, would substantially increase the status and resources of work on gender equality within the UN.  Since March 2006, women from around the world have been lobbying in favour of strengthening the United Nations Women’s Rights Architecture.  In this context, in August 2007, European women’s NGOs wrote to the Portuguese EU Presidency in order to ensure the Gender Equality Architecture recommendations happen in discussions with other member states and to call for discussion of these recommendations as a separate issue in the forthcoming General Assembly. 

Read the letter signed by the European Women’s Lobby to the Portuguese EU Presidency:

http://www.womenlobby.org/site/1abstract.asp?DocID=1988&v1ID=&RevID=&namePage=&pageParent=&DocID_sousmenu=&parentCat=22

Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB)

Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is about ensuring that government budgets and the policies and programmes that underlie them address the needs and interests of individuals that belong to different social groups. Thus, GRB looks at biases that can arise because a person is male or female, but at the same time considers disadvantage suffered as a result of ethnicity, caste, class or poverty status, location and age. GRB is not about separate budgets for women or men nor about budgets divided equally. It is about determining where the needs of men and women are the same, and where they differ. Where the needs are different, allocations should be different.

The Gender Responsive Budgeting website is a collaborative effort between the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Commonwealth Secretariat and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC)   which was launched in 2001. The website strives to support efforts of governments, women’s organisations, members of parliaments and academics to ensure that planning and budgeting effectively respond to gender equality goals. The site also provides practitioners with a variety of resources, assessments and training materials on gender responsive budgeting. Finally, it aims to promote cross-regional information-sharing on country experiences and facilitates networking and collaboration amongst countries, civil society and international organisations.  To access the website go to http://www.gender-budgets.org/