delivered by Yiping Cai

on behalf of the Asia Pacific Beijing +20 CSO Steering Committee and representatives from other CSOs in the Asia Pacific Region

August 2014

CSOs welcome that member states in Asia and Pacific reaffirm their commitments at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and subsequent reviews and the efforts in building consensus to accelerate the implementation of Beijing Platform for Action in the past two days.

 

We believe the intent and ambition of the Beijing Platform for Action can only be achieved by the sufficient financial support and transparent and participatory accountability mechanisms.

Therefore, we call on states

  • To commit to an accountability framework for the Beijing Platform for Action with concrete benchmarks and timetables;
  • To transform macro-economic structures that perpetuate women’s (and men’s) inequality and poverty and recognise women’s and girls’ economic, political, social, cultural and bodily rights and specifically to address inter-linked issues of care work as not only shared but also a collective social responsibility;
  • To fulfill 0.7% of Gross National Product (GNP) for official development assistance and 1 % to Least Developed Countries and developed countries and ensure that, consistent with the principle of international solidarity, North-South cooperation between States remain the cornerstone of international development cooperation;
  • To create global funds for development derived from taxes on harmful industries and practice such as financial speculation, extractive industries and the arms trade where they unfortunately exist;
  • To ensure an enabling environment for the realisation of women’s human rights and gender equality through a commitment to trade, finance, and investment arrangements that complement national sustainable development efforts;
  • To ensure that public financing must be prioritized over Public-Private Partnerships, especially in relation to the provision of the basic public services like health, water, sanitation, education, among others; and that public private partnerships be held to ex-ante, binding human rights standards;
  • To create and strengthen binding accountability measures and mechanisms at the national, regional and international level, which is just, transparent and participatory that include financial, social and environmental wellbeing and human rights, with the participation and representation of women’s rights group and affected communities. And we emphasise this participation as both a democratic right to support participatory democracy that supports active community decision making and as a way to bring the depth of expertise and community involvement feminist and women’s rights organizations hold; and
  • This accountability mechanism should link or integrate with the accountability mechanism that will be established for post-2015 development agenda, which includes the gender equality as its goal, in the national, regional and global level.

 

 

Notes:

  • The CSO Statement on Accountability was delivered during the Third Session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Committee on Social Development in Bangkok,18-20 August 2014.
  • CSO Steering Committee [Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP); Asian-Pacific Forum in Women Law and Development (APWLD); Asia Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW); Asia Pacific Women with Disability (APWWD) United; Asia Pacific Women Watch (APWW); Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN); Diverse Voices and Action for Equality (DIVA); femLINKPACIFIC; Fiji Women’s Rights Movement; Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW); Isis International; International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) Asia Pacific; Pacific Youth Council; Women’s Alliance for Communities in Transition – South Asia (WACT-SA); Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR); Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture & Natural Resource Management (WOCAN)]; with Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD); Asia Pacific Alliance for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (APA); Innovative Solutions; International Planned Parenthood Federation – South Asia (IPPF-SA); International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC); National Alliance of Women (NAWO)