Women Major Group Statement,
Follow Up of Rio+20, Regional Implementation Meeting -Asia Pacific,
22-24 April 2013, Bangkok, Thailand

Thank you Chair and member states delegations.
My name is Teresita Vistro representing Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development. I’m speaking today on behalf of the Women's Major Group.
The Asia and Pacific region faces some major challenges to achieving sustainable development. In order to address these challenges, there is an urgent need for clarity on the practices of maldevelopment that must be discontinued in our region, and on transformative development alternatives that will instead positively impact on the lives of people in Asia-Pacific, including women and girls.
We affirm the statements of those governments here, that emphasize the centrality of human rights and gender equality in sustainable development and the Post 2015 development agenda. We also strongly call for more explicit mention of gender equality and women's rights in all national and regional statements, government policies and programmes as we move into these global Open Working Group process, and High Level Political Forum deliberations.
Further, the Women's Major Group demand increased government, UNESCAP and civil society attention to escalating cases of land and ocean grabbing in the region. We further call for strongest attention to the impacts of global warming, climate change, ocean acidification in the region, and globally.
Moreover, we call for an end to government policies that promote rapid and resource intensive practies such as extractive industries, forestry and illegal logging, deep sea mining, and unregulated fishing. These have led to poor men and women in Asia and the Pacific living in the most precarious environments, rendered homeless and also often forcibly evicted from their homes and land. Add to this unsafe household and industrial waste contaminating living environments, waterways and oceanic pollution and it is exceedingly clear that the region must indeed move quickly toward a new kind of sustainable development, and new state responses to poverty eradication.
The Women's Major Group reiterates that Asia and Pacific development has been built on the backs of women, and it is time to end this. Women in our region produce the world´s products at increasingly lower prices; working for below subsistence wages in unbearable conditions. Women workers are denied rights to organise and bargain. Women working as domestic workers, Asia and the Pacific´s most common occupation for women are working 18 hour days, without a day off, nor guaranteed wage. They are separated from family and routinely abused at home and abroad where they also now take on roles in an unregulated and often exploitative global care chain In homes, countries, and the region, women's rights and autonomy over our bodies and life decisions are violated, especially due to the escalating fundamentalism and the politicization of religion. Moreover, Women face sexual and gender based violence, and are forced to work in a globally dysfunctional economic system that further exploits in the name of development. The current development model has clearly failed rural, indigenous, migrant women.
These are the realities of too many women in Asia and the Pacific, and has to be addressed urgently. This is the time for us to be brave and aim for a transformative and redistributive framework that reduce inequalities of wealth, power and resources, and that exacerbates gender, ethnic, class, and many other forms of inequalities.
Concretely, the Women's Major Group recommend the following:
• We call for deep and structural changes in existing global systems of power, resources and decision making. We need new frameworks and institutions designed to be democratic, accountable to all people and particularly those most affected, based on internationally agreed human rights standards and obligations;
• The Post-2015 development agenda framework must be based on existing human rights legal norms, standards and political commitments. International human rights law, including the UDHR, CEDAW, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, ECSR, and ICCPR and their follow-up programmes must form a non-negotiable base;
• There must be clear and time-bound commitments, with targets and indicators measuring quality as well as quantity and aiming to address inter and intra-state inequalities.
• On Means of Implementation, we call for timely collection and disaggregation of data on the basis of all the grounds of discrimination and their intersectionality as essential to identify, visibilise and respond to inequalities and violations of human rights and to increase accountability. Mechanisms for data collection and analysis for monitoring progress must be transparent and inclusive of input from women’s groups; require transparency of information, including budgets, as well as of decision-making processes and mechanisms at all levels and across thematic themes, as a principle to underpin the Post-2015 development framework. We demand it not only from governments, but all other development actors;
• We call on UNESCAP, UNEP and whole UN system to reflect diverse needs of all women in their programs and practices. The UN system is accountable in fully protecting and promoting gender equality and women's rights including urging governments to implement their human rights obligations;We demand the new development framework includes dedicated gender equality goals, as well as specific targets and indicators throughout. It should be an explicit priority of governments and all major groups;
• Finally Member states, We call for your full guarantee of women’s control over resources and sustainable livelihood, the full implementation of decent work and living wage, full, equal and meaningful participation of women in all decision bodies in all levels, elimination of all forms of violence against women, and an environment of peace and security for women to fully realise their rights. Lastly, we urge government to guarantee sexual and reproductive rights and access to quality and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services to women and girls. When women from Asia and the Pacific do not have the ability to make decisions on all aspects of their sexuality and decide the number and spacing of their children, then they cannot participate wholly in any aspects of our lives.

Mr. Chair, Honorable Delegations, Major Groups; we are now have the opportunity to chart a new sustainable development course; one that the vast majority of this world wants. It is indeed one that is based on global equity, sustainability of justice, realisation of univeral human rights , gender equality and dignity for all - including all women and girls in Asia and the PacificThank you.

1111_340_WMG_RIM_AP_TessVistro.doc

ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL COMMISSION

United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok, Thailand



Statement by NOELENE NABULIVOU
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Fiji
and Women's Major Group
(Shortened/Check on delivery)

To the Committee of the Whole 1,
Agenda item 3: Review of issues pertinent to the subsidiary structure of the Commission, including the work of the regional institutions, on
(a) Macroeconomic policy, poverty reduction and inclusive development
25 April 2013


Distinguished Chair, government representatives, UNESCAP Bureau, Civil society collegues and Friends,

As discussed by many in the Regional Implementation Meeting just this week on Rio+20 Outcomes, and during this time of critical delberations on Sustainable Development and the Post 2015 Development Agenda, DAWN wishes to recognise this Regional Commission for its important focus on macroeconomic policy, poverty reduction and inclusive development, and offers a few short inputs as follows:

Regional Commissions such as this, provide valuable fora to ensure strongest input of national and regional realities and priorities into regional and global development plans, and negotiations on SDGs and P2015 Development agenda negotiations. Therefore, we thank you and UNESCAP for the opportunity for civil society including women's groups to contribute, and trust this will only increase in coming years.

This regional focus is absolutely critical in a historical moment where the just-released 2013 Asia Pacific Economic and Social Survey shows that despite some gains in poverty reduction, there are still over 800 million poor in the region struggling for survival on an income of less than $1.25-a-day, consituting nearly two-thirds of the world’s poor. We reiterate on precarity of much work in Asia-Pacific, with over 1 billion workers in the region currently in vulnerable employment. All this, in the midst of food and water crises across the world including in the Asia Pacific, with an estimated 563 million people in our region undernourished.

Therefore DAWN, as one of over 400 women's groups that are part of the Women's Major Group network including in the Asia Pacific region, raise the following as essential elements of all effective and inclusive development agendas in order to eradicate poverty including immediate strongest attention to ending extreme poverty; addressing persistent and deep social and economic inequalities; and with strongest attention to environmental degredation and climate change.

Specifically, we call for the following:

Recognition that there are ecological limits to the ‘growth’ paradigm and that sustainable and equaitable economic and social development can never be primarily or only profit-driven;

Responsible macroeconomic policy also requires building on an overarching principle of equitable sharing of atmospheric space and respect for planetary boundaries, between and also within States and taking into account intergenerational and social justice, including gender and environmental justice;

Further it implies respect for the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which considers historic economic, ecological and social debt responsibility and in compliance with Agenda 21 and Rio+20 commitments on technology transfer, monitoring and assessment, skills development and research as explicit in all investment and trade regimes, and in line with precautionary principle and principle of free, prior informed consent as critical social and ecosystem protection;

Women from Asia Pacific also call for urgent global reform of monetary, financial and trade rules in line with human rights obligations, and with adequate policy space for all states, including LDC, LLDC and SIDS states in the economic south, so as to effectively implement effective macroeconomic policies, trade and investment agreements to achieve gender, economic and ecological justice for all;

This includes global and national binding safeguards for all peoples of Asia Pacific States, including through application of the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This is central for the protection of bio-cultural users of land and natural resources from negative impacts of extractive industries, and large-scale monocultures;

It also implies affirmation of global moratorium on geo-engineering in order to prevent the unsustainable technological and market based fixes that attempt the large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate such as managing solar radiation, extracting carbon from the atmosphere, and modifying the weather; This can never be the underpinning of responsible macroeconomic policies, as they merely delay and often in fact worsen, longterm social and environmental situation;

Relatedly, we call for the phase-out, elimination of financial support and immediate moratoria on harmful economic activities which affect the health of people and the environment, particularly in the areas of extractive industries, nuclear energy, and chemicals. We cannot speak of education for poorest communities to phase out uses of such harmful chemicals for example, when chemical companies continue to have access to domestic markets to sell such goods;

Rather, we must promote truly safe and sustainable energy solutions that prevent negative impacts on the health of people and of the planet and that do not further deplete existing community resources;

This implies further and better resourced state and UNESCAP support for re-orientation of national agricultural plans away from extractive industries and export- oriented agribusiness and toward local women-led and small-holder agro-ecology practices including strong protection of local free and non-marketised seed supplies and distribution systems so as to reverse environmental and social impacts of food insecurity, soil degradation and land grabbing on all affected communities including refugees, internally displaced peoples, migrants, fisher, forest and indigenous peoples, pastoralists, people with disabilities, people with diverse sexual orientation and gender identities, and many other high-need and marginalised groups;

To close, we call strongly for guarantees of Asian and Pacific women's equitable access to, and control over resources for fair asset redistribution among different social groups. This includes issues related to land, ocean, credits, technology, intellectual and cultural property;

Member States, we sincerely remind that there can be no real development by, with and for women and girls in the Asia and Pacific if we do not guarantee the human rights of all. This includes guarantee of bodily integrity and autonomy, full sexual and reproductive rights and an end to all sexual and gender based violence;

It also requires far clearer political and technical recognition that care and social reproduction are intrinsically linked with the productive economy and therefore must be fully reflected in all microeconomic and macroeconomic policy- making. This is a bottom-line for all poverty eradication, gender equality, human rights and sustainable development policy in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, and must be explicitly reflected in all national and regional development plans.

Thank you Distinguished Chair, Member states and collegues.


Ends.




Noelene Nabulivou, Executive Committee Member

Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
Website: http://www.dawnnet.org
DAWN Facebook Page
Email: noelene@dawnnet.org
Alternate: noelenen@gmail.com
Skype: 'nabulivounn'

Women’s Major Group - Sustainable Development

Women's Major Group

UNCC, Bangkok, Thailand

23 April 2013


On Post Rio+20 and Post 2015 Development Agenda - Means of Implementation and Technology Transfer

I am Meena Bilgi, Gender and Water Alliance speaking on behalf of the women and the indigenous people on means of implementation and principles for financing sustainable development. We see the following issues as essential to this discussion, to ensure social justice and human rights in development:

• Unfair aid, investments, loan schemes and trade agreements are among the root causes of unsustainable development. The international community must commit to real reforms of the existing monetary, financial and trade regimes that currently perpetuate inequalities and violence and undermine women’s and girls’ rights. Global macroeconomic structures must always comply and be coherent with governments’ human rights obligations;

• Ensure that Agenda 21 and Rio+20 commitments on technology transfer; monitoring and investments, skill development and research must be explicit in all investments and trade regimes. And in line with the precautionary principles and principle of free, prior informed consent on critical ecosystem protection and protection of humans rights of women, youth, and forest and indigenous, migrants, fisher folks, pastoralists and many marginalized and affected communities.

• Use the human rights architecture as the basis for all means of implementation of Post Rio+20 outcomes, and the Post 2015 Development Agenda and include concrete means of implementation that prioritize public financing over public-private partnerships in order to realize states obligation to allocate the maximum availability of resources for real sustainable development that covers social, economic and environmental sustainability;

• Promote innovative, democratic financing mechanisms, including long-term, flexible and specific support for civil society organizations, including diverse women's organizations and networks as leaders and decision makers in all sustainable development. Women must be involved in the development and monitoring of budgets at all levels. We call for specific resources to women’s rights and gender equality as a top priority in means of implementation;

• Guarantee of women’s rights to participate in leadership and decision-making at all levels, including in economic and social development and international financial institutions.

• Phase-out, eliminate financial support, and impose moratoria on harmful economic activities which affect the health of people and the environment, particularly in the areas of mining, nuclear energy, and chemicals;

• Climate finance must be public, obligatory, predictable, grant-based and free from any conditionality. It must be additional to the other financial obligations of developed countries.

• Recognize that care and social reproduction are linked with the productive economy and therefore MUST be fully reflected in micro and macroeconomic policymaking. Therefore the states must guarantee universal access to public care services, private sector regulation and universal social protection mechanisms. We work towards elimination of sexual division of labor, and call for women’s and indigenous people to have overall access and control over resources, and promotion of equitable redistribution of paid and unpaid work.

• The United Nations and member States must address in an integrated way the obstacles to gender equality at global, national, and local levels. One of the main goals of those working on means of implementation must be how to ensure that the Post-2015 development agenda includes clear guidelines on how to respond to the multiple crises that affect women and girls globally, and particularly in the global South.


Contact:
contact@WomenMajGrp.org
www.womenrio20.org

1111_340_WMG -Means of implementation Final.docx

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature fully supports the positions taken by the Earth Law Center for inclusion in the Major Groups’ input on the development of the SDGs:
 Support for Earth-based SDGs, specifically through inclusion of commitments to recognize in
law the rights of ecosystems and species to exist, thrive and evolve.
 Endorsement, and promotion for adoption and implementation, of the Universal Declaration of
the Rights of Mother Earth, and active support for its implementation globally.
 Re-characterization of “sustainable development” as “sustainable communities,” a term that
includes both human communities and the wider communities of the natural world. Adoption of
SDGs with a focus on sustainable communities is necessary to ensure that all elements of
well-being are considered.

The current, neoliberal economics-based development approach
distorts communities to serve the economy. Elements of sustainable human communities
include not just the economy, but also culture, societal/familial relations, healthy food, clean drinking water, sanitation, housing, necessary medical care, democratic governance, education, meaningful and appropriately rewarded labor, spirituality, civic duty, volunteerism, etc. Sustainable environmental communities similarly require healthy nutrients, clean water, biodiversity, restoration in the face of destruction, and thriving, connected habitats. The economy must be viewed as serving human and environmental communities, not the reverse.

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature is a worldwide network of individuals and organizations who support the recognition and implementation of Rights of Nature. http://therightsofnature.org

Robin Milam
Administrative Director
The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature

1111_715_SDG Inputs ELC.pdf

I think the great problem with the SDG's is that they are development goals, not sustainability goals.

We should reverse the priority, to have top priority go to measurable progress toward hard targets for achieving sustainability. It's quite possible scientifically, but we’d need to use “The Commons Approach” organizationally (1). The tragedy now occurring, with the effort having the wrong order of priorities is that the implicit "sustainability goal" naturally becomes to make an effort to slow the rate of growing unsustainabiliy of the economy.

That is being achieved but fails as a way for the economies to become sustainable. It may well be thought of as an important step, but if we face the truth, it’s a total failure as a plan. You see that unfortunate trade-off in most agreements and metrics, a plan to slow the rate of growing impacts…. but it's a disaster for the earth and for the future of our complex societies.

1) The UN is Urged to Adopt “The Commons Approach” at All Levels Of Government and Throughout Society, to Achieve Real Sustainable Development and MDG goals
nhttp://www.worldwewant2015.org/node/274168#comment-41782

CALL FOR DISCUSSION NOTES (Now closed): TOPICS FOR POST-2015 THEMATIC CONSULTATION ON ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY | World We Want 2015