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March 8, 2008 - International Women's Day
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GCAP Call to Action
The GCAP Feminist Task Force (FTF) is encouraging all partners and constituencies to promote International Women’s Day by taking action in their respective countries. On March 8th, under the leadership of the FTF, GCAP will highlight the centrality of gender equality to end poverty and the importance of investing in women and girls and calling for financing of gender equality and women’s empowerment. All GCAP partners are encouraged to join in this global mobilization.
The March 8th campaign will be global in scope with national and regional specific demands to apply pressure on national, local and regional governments.
Since 2005 and as part of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, the GCAP Feminist Task Force has been putting forward a clear message:
The eradication of poverty cannot succeed without equality and justice for women
While we prepare to celebrate International Women’s Day March 8th, we invite all GCAP colleagues to add their voices to this message and strengthen their efforts at national, regional and global level to ensure that gender equality becomes a reality and with it the better society we all dream of.
This year we will launch the GCAP March 8th Call to Action for Gender Equality to End Poverty at the UN Headquarters in New York during the meetings of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). IWD mobilizations call for increased financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment and support for an improved gender equality architecture of the UN. Our March 8th demands come under the banner GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY.
Gender Equality to end Poverty
The Global Call demands systemic changes to end poverty. These include critical demands for fair trade, debt cancellation, increased aid to poor nations, and accountable and transparent policy processes. These are women’s human rights and gender equality issues, as current international policies rob women of livelihoods, healthcare and other economic rights, while feeding fundamentalist backlash and militarism that deprive women of personal autonomy and choices.
Trade Justice for women’s social, economic, cultural and political empowerment: Trade expansion – both within and across borders – has been dependent on poor women’s labour. Trade justice therefore implies not only more equitable terms of trade and national economic sovereignty, but also guaranteeing women’s land rights, labour rights and decent jobs, protecting women’s agricultural activities, maintaining food security, livelihoods and traditional knowledge, ensuring essential public services for all, and developing policies so that the benefits of trade will advance development objectives and reach the most marginalized members of society, particularly poor women.
Debt Cancellation to lift the burden on poor women and their families: Much of the debt of developing countries is being paid for by poor women. Currently women are providing healthcare, education, child and elder care, and other services which support families, societies and economies as part of their unpaid labour. In order to eradicate poverty and advance human rights therefore, debt must be cancelled, resources shared equitably to meet the needs of the poor, especially women, and essential services must be provided by the state.
More and Better Aid to fund an end to the feminization of poverty: The volume of development assistance given by rich countries must be increased to the 0.7% of GNP goal in order to help poor countries lift themselves out of poverty. This aid should prioritize empowering women and achieving gender equality in order to eradicate poverty.
Democratic, Transparent, Participatory and Accountable National Policy Processes to open doors for women and eliminate discriminatory policies: National strategies to eliminate poverty need to empower women through education, health care and HIV/AIDS treatments, reproductive rights, strategies to end violence against women, full political participation, equal citizenship, inheritance and property rights, and access to essential services including affordable housing. Moreover, processes must be developed that facilitate the participation of all – especially women, youth, migrants and indigenous peoples – in policy development, implementation and monitoring, with mechanisms for information sharing, input, and redress.
Summary of demands
Financing for Development:
- Donor and developing country governments must ensure direct funding and establish clear mechanisms for the participation of women’s rights organizations as part of civil society, particularly women from socially excluded groups, in all the national development planning processes and aid planning, programming, management, monitoring and evaluation.
- There should be a significant increase in investments in women’s rights organizations and movements; these organizations should receive substantial, predictable, multi-year, core funding for women’s rights organizations at all levels to play watchdog and advocacy roles.
- Promote the integration of gender responsive budgeting as a tool
to combine with General Budget Support (GBS) and Sector-Wide Approaches
(SWAps), with the participation of women’s empowerment organizations.
Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR):
- To develop a newly created women-specific entity at the highest level with Under Secretary General leadership and to be fully and ambitiously funded.
Lauch - February 28th
UN HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK DURING THE MEETINGS OF THE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN (CSW).
Read the Blog from Ana Agostino and see the Photo Gallery.
The FTF will present the findings of International Women’s Tribunals on Poverty, raising awareness of the importance of gender equality to the eradication of poverty. Representatives will also launch the GCAP March 8th Call to Action for Gender Equality to End Poverty and join with other women’s organizations to call for increased financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment and the strengthening of the gender equality architecture of the UN.
Based on the results of the a process of consultation and the highly successful Women’s Tribunals in 2007, the FTF encourages all GCAP members to present their governments and international institutions the following demands and mobilise towards their fulfilment.
See also
- More on the International Women’s Tribunals on Poverty
- Brief report of the Women’s Tribunals on Poverty, in New Delhi, India, October 2007
The E-Campaign
The e-campaign is a real and virtual global mass mobilization designed to reach local, national and/or global government officials. National and regional coalitions can add their specific demands to the main message so that messages sent to government officials are country and regionally-specific. Click here to download the card template (Word)
The March 8th campaign materials are designed to be simple and inexpensive for GCAP partners so that every person can take personal action by sending at the minimum an e-mail message. Anyone reading this message through a computer can proceed to send their e-postcard to a government official, decision-maker, colleague, or anyone of their choice.
Specific actions have been proposed to support GCAP partner participation in the March 8th campaign. The menu of activities and actions include:
• E-cards, e-mails, SMS/text messages – send quick messages to local, national and global leaders. Use the templates on this website.
• Postcards and letter writing – Download the template and write letters and postcards to decision-makers.
• Banners – Use the “Gender Equality to End Poverty” logo to make a banner for your demonstration, political rally or organization.
• Website postings and links – Post links about IWD on your organization’s website and announce IWD on your webpage.
• Videos, films –GCAP will screen a photo video clip of GCAP women's actions. This will be available for all to use at events on March 8th and on www.whiteband.org
Ideas for actions on IWD:
• Organize a postcard writing campaign in your local area. Mail postcards to local and national government leaders.
• Organize a viewing of the IWD video or other film dealing with a particular women’s issue.
• Organize policy events to raise awareness and visibility!
• Organize a Women’s Tribunal on Poverty. Resources on how to run a tribunal can be provided.
• Organize rallies, demonstrations, public actions, policy panels, tribunals and forums.
• Hold political and cultural events to raise awareness about the feminization of poverty.
Material for e-mailing and postcard/letter writing will be available for downloading on the GCAP website next week. Statistics and other substantive information is also available on the website through downloads and links to clip and paste in tailoring your message. Web links to government sites are also available to help you look for the right person to e-mail your message.
The FTF looks forward to working hand in hand with national coalitions in bringing the messages of gender, poverty and inequality on March 8th. Please contact Ana Agostino or Rosa Lizarde of the FTF with any questions or concerns.
We encourage all partners to make a difference----think globally and act locally. Take action this International Women's Day. Speak out for women’s rights! Call for investing in women and girls! Gender Equality to End Poverty! Do your share to ensure a brighter future for women and girls. Join us in celebrating International Women’s Day.
Resources
International Women's Day (IWD) is the global day celebrating and honoring women’s achievements around the world through diverse actions and activities, ranging from political rallies, policy forums, conferences, women's craft markets, art exhibits, theatrical performances as well as personal actions, such as participating in e-campaigns and more. The date is commemorated at the United Nations and designated in many countries as a national holiday. Annually on March 8th, thousands of events are held throughout the world to promote women’s visibility, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
For more information on IWD, please see the following links:
See also