Feminists want a world where aid is no longer necessary

"As feminist, women’s rights and gender equality advocates we reaffirm our vision of a world where aid is no longer necessary. Where unequal power relations and undemocratic distribution of wealth and structures of injustices all forms of violence and war are transformed to create new forms of relations based on equality, dignity, respect and human rights that enhance solidarity, equity, inclusion, non-subordination and justice for all." Read here the statement by the Feminist Constituency at the High Level Meeting on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation that was held in Nairobi, Kenya, 28th November to 1st December 2016.

WOMEN’S FORUM STATEMENT

As feminist, women’s rights and gender equality advocates we reaffirm our vision as highlighted in the Key Asks of the CPDE Feminist Constituency for the Nairobi High-Level Meeting, of a world where aid is no longer necessary. Where unequal power relations and undemocratic distribution of wealth and structures of injustices all forms of violence and war are transformed to create new forms of relations based on equality, dignity, respect and human rights that enhance solidarity, equity, inclusion, non-subordination and justice for all.

We also reaffirm gender analysis present in all previous Women’s Conferences including Beijing Platform for Action as an essential tool to ensure equality and to end patriarchy in our societies.

We believe development is a human right and that international solidarity through sustainable international cooperation has a crucial role to play in fulfilling states’ responsibility to ensure that all people including women and girls realise their rights. We believe in redistributive justice and the eradication of all forms of inequalities, not just gender inequalities, but race, caste, ethnicity, rural-urban divides, abilities, age, sexual orientation, occupation etc. Development should ensure 'no woman and girl is left behind'. And we challenge the mainstream economic development models, based on extractivism and the exploitation of resources, including women’s bodies, labour and natural resources such as land, to shift the dominant development discourse towards an inclusive, sustainable, and just paradigm.

We underscore that women, feminists, women’s organisations and women movements play key roles in development at all levels and stress that the full realisation of human rights and women’s rights are essential to any development and to any development cooperation framework.

Feminist and women’s rights groups and gender equality advocates gathered in Nairobi ahead of HLM2 are deeply concerned about the limited implementation of the commitments made towards gender equality and women’s rights and therefore call on all governments and other development actors involved in the GPEDC for a stronger Global Partnership with a clear focus on gender equality and human rights that ensures following imperatives:

• Deepen the Paris, Accra and Busan commitments towards gender equality and human rights and promote an equitable and just development cooperation architecture;.
• Strengthen development effectiveness through practices based on human rights standards, including women’s rights standards;
• Development effectiveness requires democratic ownership and the systematic participation of civil society, including feminist and women’s rights organizations, at all stages. We notice with concern this is not necessarily happening on the ground.
• Effective development also requires the strengthening of feminist and women’s rights organizing, both in terms of capacities and financial support to promote transformative progress on gender equality and women’s rights.
• An enabling environment for civil society, including feminist and women’s rights organizations, is critical. We noticed with concern the shrinking civil society spaces and that women human rights defenders are under attack and face constant threat in many parts of the world. Governments and other stakeholders in development, especially the private sector, must guarantee a safe, secure and enabling environment to all human rights defenders including women human rights defenders. Furthermore, all states have the obligation to implement and respect all provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
• We demand that Inclusive partnership for effective development ensures development justice and recognises and values reproductive and care work, and protects and promote decent work and sustainable forms of livelihoods and ensures women’s unmediated right to own and control land, house, new technology and other productive resources. It further recognises care as a public good and a basic right. Development cooperation should acknowledge that the countries including small islands and landlocked states in situations of fragility and conflict face differential and disproportional impact of climate change and armed conflict on the lives and rights of women and girls.

We strongly believe that for development cooperation to be effective results should be based on the progress made to fulfil human rights obligations and include clear deadlines. Feminist and women’s rights groups gathered in Nairobi also demand for development cooperation to eradicate all forms of inequalities, including poverty and all forms of violence against women and girls. To address not just symptoms but structural causes of inequalities including patriarchy by promoting sustainable systematic behaviour change. Development co-operation should fill the infrastructure gaps, and address women’s energy and technology needs.

On transparency and accountability we note with great concern about the lack of political will and capacity of most states to systemmatically monitor gender equality. And we therefore demand all development stakeholders must strengthen their Gender responsive tracking systems.

1. As a first step GPEDC should establish measures to integrate a feminist approach into all its work and structures. Set up an inclusive multi-stakeholder taskforce, in partnership with feminist and women’s rights advocates from civil society, to address gender equality and women’s rights commitments for effective development cooperation
2. Develop, promote and strengthen multiple accountability systems for women’s rights, and gender equality. Have clear feminist indicators and make gender equality indicators mandatory part of all development  partnerships.
3. All development partners should be held accountable to all agreed commitments including human rights.
4. All development cooperation monitoring mechanisms should assess human rights and environmental impacts and risks in a gender sensitive way.
5. External policies, including development, trade and investment should be coherent and aligned with human rights standards, including women’s rights standards.
6. All monitoring and regulatory mechanisms must be designed and implemented from a South perspective, and fully adhere to the development realities of global South, rather than to the OECD systems and guidelines.
7. Bring all actors including the private sector and South-South Co-operations in line with all development effectiveness principles and human rights.
8. Go beyond the economic approach to development and integrate approaches aligned with human rights standards, namely economic and social rights (i.e. ESCR) to ensure nobody is left behind. Go beyond just data and numbers also assess processes. Ensure monitoring is result based and goes beyond gender mainstreaming—e.g. gender budgeting.
9. Promote, and support linking of GPEDC monitoring mechanisms to international, and regional human rights mechanisms such as UPR, and treaty bodies (i.e. CEDAW, ICESCR, MECSEVI, Maputo Declaration) to hold states accountable to the impact and outcome of the ODA and development policies.

In the end we reiterate the critical need to set up an inclusive multi-stakeholder taskforce within Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) for gender equality.