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GENDER PERSPECTIVESFOR EARTH SUMMIT 2002

– ENERGY, TRANSPORT, INFORMATION FOR DECISION-MAKING

Report on the International Conference *

at Jagdschloss Glienicke, Berlin, Germany
10-12 January 2001

Jointly hosted by
the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Heinrich Boell Foundation

Published by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the
Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

About the host organisations

BMU: The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, is one of the ministries responsible for the German government’s activities relating to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the preparations for the World Summit on Sus­tainable Development in 2002. Address: Alexanderplatz 6, Berlin. Minister: Mr. Juergen Trittin. Website: http://www.bmu.de.

Heinrich Boell Foundation (HBF): The Heinrich Boell Foundation, which is associated with the German Green Party, is a legally autonomous and intellectually open political founda­tion. Its foremost task is political education in Germany and abroad with the aim of promot­ing informed democratic opinion, socio-political commitment and mutual understanding. In addition, the Heinrich Boell Foundation supports artistic and cultural as well as scholarly projects, and co-operation in the development field. Board: Ralf Fuecks, Dr. Claudia Neusuess, Petra Streit. Address: Rosenthaler Str. 40/41, 10178 Berlin. http://www.boell.de.

The co-ordinating organisation

UNED Forum is a unique multi-stakeholder network and forum on sustainable develop­ment which has promoted outcomes from the first Earth Summit in 1992 and is now work­ing on preparations for Earth Summit 2002, through facilitating the involvement of major groups and stakeholders in the policy work of the United Nations and other inter-govern­mental institutions in the area of sustainable development, and in particular in the work of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, the UN Environment Programme and the UN Development Pro­gramme. 3, Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL. UK. Chair: Mr. Derek Osborn. http://www.unedforum.org and www.earthsummit2002.org  

Conference Co-Chairs: Ms. Barbara Schaefer, BMU, Dr. Minu Hemmati, UNED Forum & Co-chair, CSD NGO Women’s Caucus

Moderator: Ms. Heike Leitschuh-Fecht, environmental/economic journalist; moderator/ fa­cilitator  

Rapporteur: Ms. Vanya Walker-Leigh, economist and journalist, Nature Trust Malta

Conference organising team: Ms. Jasmin Enayati, Project Assistant, UNED Forum; Ms. Kerstin Kippenhan, Rio+10 team, HBF; Ms. Angela Gehring, BMU

 

SUMMARY FOR DECISION-MAKERS

The conference was held as one of the first steps in the preparatory process for the World Sum­mit on Sustainable Development, 2002 (subsequently identified in this report as ‘the 2002 Summit’) decided by the 55th UN General Assembly, 2000. It focused on three key issues on the agenda of the 9th meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Develop­ment, (CSD-9) to be held in April 2001, as well as on women’s participation, strategies and activities towards and at the 2002 Summit. (Annex I)  

The meeting was attended by 35 participants from countries of the North, (including 20 from the host country, Germany) and 15 from the coun­tries of the South, of 12 different nationalities. Experts present were from academic institutions, government, NGOs as well as from professional sectors. (Annex II) Opening statements were made by Gila Altman, Parliamentary State Secretary from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety; Dr Uschi Eid, Parliamentary State Secretary from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development; and Dr. Renate Augstein, Deputy Director-General, Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. (Statements are summarized in the confer­ence proceedings below, executive summary of the conference. Full texts can be accessed via the weblink given in Annex III.) Five background papers were submitted to the conference (full texts of the papers can be downloaded from: http://www.earthsummit2002.org/workshop; short summaries are given in Annex IV):

  1. Gender and Energy the  North, by Ulrike Roehr
  2. Gender and Energy in the  South, by Hesphina Rukato
  3. Gender and Transport in Developed Countries, by Kerry Hamilton
  4. Gender and Transport in Less Developed Countries, by Deike Peters
  5. Women and Information for Participation and Decision Making in Sustainable Development in Developing Countries, by Thais Corral and Pamela Ransom

 Participants divided into three workshops on gender and energy, gender and transport and gen­der and information for decision making, to discuss the papers and develop recommen­dations on priorities and strategies; these were presented in a co-chairs’ summary at the fi­nal plenary ses­sion of the conference on 12th January (the text of the co-chairs summary was finalized after the conference on the basis of e-mail comments of participants). A plenary discussion was held on the various issues concerning the CSD and 2002 Summit process, which focused on how to en­sure the full participation of both men and women and the bal­anced reflection of their respective concerns throughout the preparatory process for the 2002 Summit itself (the recommendations are recapitulated below). 

The common concern of these recommendations was how to overcome the present relative in­adequate level of gender mainstreaming in on-going policies and programmes, so as to fulfill commitments assumed by all UN member states under Chapter 24 of Agenda 21 as well as in over a hundred references pertaining to women in the whole of Agenda 21, in several sections of the Beijing Platform for Action and other international agreements emerging from the cycle of UN Conferences, CEDAW, etc. within the three sectors to be discussed at CSD-9 – energy, transport, and  as well in information for decision-making.

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CONFERENCE RECOMMENDATIONS

Many issues were raised during the conference, which adopted the following recom­mendations previously developed by three workshops:

A.   Gender and Energy

1)     analyse missing gender analysis in NGOs/campaigns on energy and develop strate­gies to promote them

2)     develop a North-South critique of the energy industry and develop guidelines from a gender perspective for investment policies in the energy sector

3)     develop a gender analysis of all international energy-related processes and de­velop a gender analysis for the Climate Change Convention process, G8 and world energy reports. Immediate steps are to

organise a Women and Climate Change Forum at COP-6 (resumed) and at subse­quent COPs

organise a workshop on women and energy politics during the NGO forum paral­lel to G8, Genoa, July 2001

4)     obtain commitments from shareholders of all Multilateral Development Banks to ensure gender mainstreaming in all energy policies, programmes and projects so as to achieve sustainable energy development

5)     ensure that all energy-related research include a gender and sustainable devel­opment analysis through gender-balanced teams. Examples of research would include:

test assumptions on gender differences towards energy needs, use, planning and policy

cultural differences towards energy issues from a gender perspective

How can behavioural changes in energy use be achieved, differentiated be­tween sexes?

critique current energy production and consumption models from a sustain­able development and gender perspective

analyse impact of energy-related projects on women/local community control over their land/water resources

analyse effectiveness of renewable energy policies/projects in the South

6)     organise an international tribunal at the 2002 Summit providing testimonies from victims of large energy projects and showcasing successful gender and sus­tainable development projects

7)     develop advocacy tools to link poverty, energy and gender

8) Request resources for national and regional processes to implement the above recommendations

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B.    Gender and Transport

1)     Environment and sustainability issues as well as gender perspectives need be fully integrated into all transport related policy-making in all departments at all levels on a regular and pro-active basis.

2)     The definition and understanding of mobility need to be revised aiming to re­flect women's lives and responsibilities – i.e. diverse patterns of a multitude of tasks and related trips such as transporting loads for sale; accompanying  chil­dren and elderly, etc. – and enable authorities to design appropriate transport systems.

3)     In general, measures are necessary which reduce transport burdens and trans­port ex­penditures of women and men while creating equitable access and ensuring women's increased opportunities and participation.

4)     All transport system development must be informed by the  lived experience of women; governments should integrate experts on gender-sensitive transport sys­tem planning and decision-making in their planning structures.

5)     Gender Impact Assessments (GIAs) should be integrated into EIAs which would contribute to creating Sustainability Impact Assessments. Sustainability Audits should include Gender Audits addressing the androcentric perspectives reflected in current policies (prioritising men's lives and needs) and Caring Economy Audits.

6)     Gender budget analyses are an important tool of engendering macro-economic analysis; they should be conducted to provide information about how much women- & men-power, institutional and financial resources, and research fund­ing goes into furthering women’s vs. men's interests regarding transport.

7)     Investigate changes in transport infrastructure for all countries with a gender per­spective.

8)     Governments should introduce participatory, inclusive transport planning method­ologies in order to be able to incorporate the social / gender divide of transport and travel needs.

9)     Governments should commit to guarantee sustainable, gender-sensitive trans­port systems. If privatisation is an option, governments have to define appropri­ate condi­tions.

10)  Governments, donor agencies and International Financial Institutions (GEF, World Bank, UNDP) should support:

research on women’s strategies to cope with transport needs, incl. e-com­merce / virtual shopping; community taxis; etc

infra-structure for non-motorised transport and pedestrians

initiatives providing more bicycles for women, especially in developing countries

sustainable, local, small-scale transport development

11)  Governments and relevant agencies should conduct improved transport surveys, in­cluding gender relevant research and gender sensitive methodologies, includ­ing gender sensitive interviewing; analysing daily realities of female transport users, women's latent demands and their willingness to pay for better transport; docu­menting transport sharing models at local levels; gender sensitive stakeholder con­sultation.

12)  Governments, relevant agencies and research institutions should provide statis­tics on gender differentiated mobility, including data differentiated by length of trip rather than number of trips; by reasons to travel (men have more choice than women); car drivers vs. passengers; accounting for journeys on foot which are women's; ac­counting for typical times of travel (rush hours, i.e. men's travel, vs. non-rush hours, i.e. school run); providing figures on health issues, e.g. transport poverty (being ma­rooned in rural areas links with increased use of anti-depressants).

13)  Governments and donor agencies should support networks addressing working on gender and sustainable to develop concrete strategies towards integrating sustainable, gender-equitable development into transport systems development, particularly as part of the preparations for the Summit in 2002.

14)  NGOs and women's organisations should

Create a formalised dialogue amongst gender & environment researchers, women’s organisations and transport NGOs

Create a West/East European network on gender & transport issues, (e.g. as a component of the global NGO transport network of the CSD NGO Transport Caucus.)

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C.    Gender and Information for Decision-Making

1.     Science and information for decision-making

1.1  Due to the global digital divide there are significant knowledge gaps, particularly between North and South and between women and men. The UNDP Human Devel­opment Report 1999, for example, is outlining strategies designed to bridge these gaps. Governments and donor agencies should support projects related to the se strategies;

1.2  Gender expertise needs to be integrated into research; scientific advisory bodies and environmental impact assessments (EIAs); for example:

Women and women's NGOs must participate in the  development of social-envi­ronmental information systems;
Social monitoring must be integrated into environmental monitoring; insti­tutions involved in designing environmental monitoring should collaborate with social scientists and gender experts to further such integration;

1.3 The dominating world-view is comparably science-based and technology-ori­ented. While this paradigm provides an important tool in order to understand envi­ronmental, economic and social inter-linkages, it was felt that this needs to be com­plemented by the 'human factor'.

2.     Linking information to people and politics

2.1 Equal access by women to information technology and its application in interac­tive decision-making for sustainable development need to be ensured;

2.2  Public interest groups need to be empowered by funding and capacity building to serve as intermediaries of relevant information on gender and sustainable de­velop­ment policies.

3. Developing indicators and indicator systems

3.1  Gender disaggregated data need to be generated on all levels;

3.2  A gender perspective should be integrated into all indicators within the CSD in­di­cator system, where appropriate;

3.3  The CSD indicator system needs to take into account the research done by UNIFEM and other relevant organisations.

To achieve the above, the CSD should, in consultation with the Women's caucus, conduct a gender review of the current CSD set of indicators and produce a revised version. This should build on existing analysis (see work­shop background paper) and existing gender sensitive indicators designed for various areas of sustainable development;

3.4  Apart from gender sensitive indicators with regard to issues such as freshwater, hu­man settlements, etc., key issues that need to be integrated into sustainability indi­cator systems are:

proportion and participation of women in decision-making bodies related to sustain­able development;

the gender division of labour (including paid and unpaid work);

budget allocation to gender related issues in the field of sustainable devel­opment;

women's health and the environment;

3.5 A side event should be held at CSD-9 on gender aspects of sustainable develop­ment indicators.

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CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Opening Session

Dr. Claudia Neusuess, member of the HBF Executive Board opened the conference by thanking the organisers for their work in bringing it about and stating that she was re­sponsible for Foundation activities relating to the North-South dialogue and to gender democracy. The purpose of this conference was to identify both knowl­edge and knowl­edge gaps relating to gender aspects of energy, transport and deci­sion-making, and pro­duce concrete recommendations for action by both policy-makers and stakeholders. Other discussions would focus on the forthcoming 2002 Summit. The outcome of the conference would be published in a conference report, and also be the subject of a side event organised during the CSD-9 inter-session meeting in March 2001. They would be fed into the German government, UN and many other organisations and interested stakeholder bodies. This was the second event organised by HBF on gender and the en­vironment, following a meeting in September 2000 to stimulate debate in Germany on the Beijing +5 results. This process served both to bring in a gender perspective on a range of topics, and to learn from the South, not just hold a dialogue.

Ms. Gila Altmann, Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry for the Environ­ment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, stated that the connection between women’s issues and ecological questions was an important political and social issue. Women’s skills in resource and community management were well-known; in both North and South a key demand of the sustainability debate was  the need for in­creased women’s involvement in social and political decision-making.

In this as in many other respects, there were still considerable gaps between Agenda 21 goals and their respective implementation. The complexity of the relationships between environmental objectives and gender made the situation even more diffi­cult, since a thorough understanding of many related issues was lacking, and cer­tainly one reason for slow implementation. This conference was a first attempt to close some of the knowl­edge gaps about the gender-environment links as well as was the first gender-focused international meeting to take place as part of the 2002 Summit preparations. However, more far-reaching goals were also before the meet­ing, since despite the Agenda 21 commitments, subsequent specific negotiations had to date often resulted in relatively unsubstantial decisions - mainly general calls for increased women’s participation or consideration of their interests, rather than specific projects or action plans.

Disappointing results of the Beijing follow-up process also revealed the minimal prog­ress achieved on women and environmental issues. For example, the final Bei­jing +5 document failed to mention environmental refugees, (the majority of whom were women) the impact of natural disasters on women, and the increasingly domi­nant role of women in agriculture in many developing countries due to male out-migration. Other problems facing women included long distances to markets, water sources, and social services reducing their employment as well as educational op­portunities for girls

However, women should not be seen as the victims of environmental development; in­stead men should be given a chance to profit from women’s experience, based on both known and new models to connect paid jobs with family work.

The success or failure of the 2002 Summit would depend on specific action-ori­ented de­cisions which could be implemented in practice, and which would address problems particularly affecting women relating not only to transport and health, but to economic justice, training, education and democracy. The German government hoped to imple­ment visions generated by the conference as concrete projects with UN partners within the 2002 Summit context.

Dr. Uschi Eid, Parliamentary Secretary, German Ministry for Economic Co-opera­tion, stated that women must start early preparations for the 2002 Summit; inter- and intra-generational as well as inter-gender equity were fundamental to meeting the challenge of sustainable development.

Women were particularly hit by environmental degradation, while environmental changes frequently involved the erosion of women’s rights and opportunities of women as well as reduced access to water, firewood, food and secure working condi­tions. Pov­erty reduction and the protection of the environment and natural re­sources must be pur­sued together as part of a "win-win" strategy. Women offered much untapped potential, yet their influence on political decision-making remained minimal, their needs, interests and skills and experience being largely ignored. 

The principle of gender mainstreaming and equality adopted under the Beijing Plat­form, and reaffirmed at Beijing+5 must be applied in all policy areas. Women’s great poten­tial for sustainable resource management made them important partners for develop­ment co-operation in environmental matters; the Federal Ministry for Economic Co-op­eration and Development was trying to incorporate the gender per­spective into devel­opment projects. However, increased energy efficiency industry often led to job losses, with a special impact on women, who constitute a large pro­portion of unskilled and semi-skilled workers – there was need to offer them alter­native income sources.

There were several conclusions for further development co-operation: a) programmes related to environment must be based on gender analyses, to include the household dis­tribution of tasks and resources b) the most important socio-economic aims should be to secure equal rights for men and women to use and own water, land and forests, to re­duce the work loads and achieve resource use efficiency c) solutions suitable to local conditions could only be found with full people’s partici­pation, including an active role for women d) donors and governments should spe­cially support projects incorporating gender-specific poverty reduction and equality measures e) training and incentives should target women’s increased role in the  energy and transport sector.

The 2002 Summit was a valuable opportunity to map out a more sustainable devel­op­ment path for the Earth, in which gender-specific aspects had to be taken into ac­count; women had be part in the decision-making processes worldwide. This politi­cal will must now be translated into concrete political action.

Ms. Renate Augstein, Deputy Director-General, Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, conveyed the best wishes to the conference of the German Minister for Women’s Affairs, Dr. Christine Bergmann. The Ministry had expertise on gender perspectives, yet despite the emergence of gender mainstream­ing on the interna­tional agenda some years ago, the concept was rather new in Germany insofar as practi­cal political measures were concerned. While the goal of gender mainstreaming was to achieve gender equality, the concept was to transform general policy processes, so that gender perspectives came to be incorporated in all policies at all levels and at all stages, by all actors normally involved in policy-making. 

Political activities must take into account the differences in the lives of women and men, often involving different constraints, opportunities and goals, since ignoring them could not promote gender equality. Gender mainstreaming was endorsed by the Fourth World Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995 and became a formal le­gally binding commitment for EU states, with the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1st of May 1999. In the case of Germany, the 1994 constitutional reform the German Basic Law was supplemented by an additional clause stating that “the State promotes the im­plementation of de facto equal rights for women and men and works towards the elimi­nation of existing disadvantages”.

On 23rd June 1999 the German government decided that that the equality of women and men would become an underlying guiding principle of its policies, and that within the context of the Amsterdam Treaty the goal should be achieved by means of gender main­streaming.  In consequence, a high-level inter-ministerial steering committee was estab­lished and initiated its activities last year on the promotion of increased gender equality under the guidance of the Federal Ministry for Family Af­fairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth; work had started to develop criteria to make general policies gender-sensi­tive; every ministry was tasked with identifying special activities to implement gender mainstreaming within its specific area of competence.

In addition, the Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries were clarified so that gen­der perspectives be observed in all their political, normative and administrative meas­ures, while all Federal officials would now undergo training in gender main­streaming. In 2001, each ministry would initiate at least one project involving gen­der mainstream­ing to gain experience. Efforts to implement the gender main­streaming concept on the Länder level had also taken place, as for example the deci­sions of the governments of Lower Saxony and Saxony Anhalt to introduce gender mainstreaming into their political activities.

Mainstreaming involved a complementary, dual approach - both horizontal, across the board and specific action for women where appropriate. This was in contrast to the pre­vious approach of special units or ministries reacting to discrimination of women by or­ganising specific projects for women – though this would still be nec­essary. The appli­cation of gender mainstreaming revealed that general policies were never gender neu­tral. Specific affirmative action policies and gender mainstreaming were therefore two different, equally essential strategies to reach the same goal, which could not substitute each other. 

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Session on Gender and Sustainable Development in the Rio Process

– Defining the Issues

Ms. Anneliese Looß, German Federal Environmental Agency, delivered a statement on “Gender & Environment / Sustainable Development: Defining the Issues.“ After com­menting on recent developments in Germany, including a new project on Gen­der and Sustainability within the Federal Environmental Agency, she said that over­all public and political acknowledgement of the links between gender and environ­ment still did not exist, even less so the idea that sustainable development was not achievable without the realisation of gender equity, even though this concept was clearly stated in Agenda 21, Chapter 24, the Beijing Platform of Action, and other agreements pertaining to women and/or sustainable development issues. Reasons included different views of sustainability, especially the relation between ecological, economic and social aspects as well as the gender-unequal access to power and deci­sion-making in most of today’s so­cieties.

The organising role and participation of the German Federal Environment Ministry in the present conference, due also to continual lobbying by a still small number of spe­cialised activists, was a considerable step towards official recognition of both the exist­ing gender differences in approaches towards environmental policy and sustainability, and the need for a gender focus in order to achieve the latter. A gen­der perspective was now essential, no longer casting women in the victim’s role, but based on a proactive definition by women of their goals and perspectives.

Problems faced when dealing with sustainable development issues included how to un­derstand and define economic growth, modernisation and development in rela­tion to sustainability; how to achieve a  holistic view of ecological, economic and so­cial as­pects of sustainability; how to obtain a societal consensus on the goals to be achieved to realise sustainability; how to achieve inter-, intragenerational and inter­gender equity; how to mediate between conflicting interests and pressures to main­tain present power relations; what were appropriate indicators for collective and in­dividual behaviour ad­justments.

The issue of women and gender with respect to sustainable development raised another series of problems. Did we wish to work towards sustainability, a concept with different meanings in North and South, as well for women of different social levels, or rather “Sustainable Livelihood”? Was gender mainstreaming a concept enabling us to relate to our view of sustainability in the same way as Agenda 21, Chapter 24 or the Beijing Plat­form for Action? What concepts to develop about gender equity, gender roles and divi­sion of labour within a sustainable society? Could we manage to have a common vision of sustainability among ourselves?

Regarding strategies to achieve defined goals, was gender impact analysis an appropriate tool? What indicators should be proposed? Should a women's global confer­ence be held prior to the 2002 Summit and what should our contribution be? What should be written in the national report for Earth Summit 2002 about women and sustainability, women and environment? Should we work towards an article in the 2002 Summit document on women and sustainability, an article which could not so easily be denied by the decision-makers, e.g. in the Northern countries?

In closing, she warned that we must move away from the present situation where men and women expect women to clean up what was polluted and damaged largely as a result of male decision-making and behaviour patterns.

Dr. Minu Hemmati, UNED Forum, made a presentation on ”the Rio Process – CSD and Earth Summit 2002 – an NGO / Women’s Caucus Perspective” and outlined the pre­paratory process for the 2002 Summit. 

At local and national levels, national consultation processes on priority issues would take place during April 2001, and national assessments would be produced to re­view Agenda 21 as well as the Programme for Further Implementation of Agenda 21 (Rio+5 / Earth Summit II, 1997). A series of regional preparatory committees would start func­tioning at regional level from the summer of 2001, and be preceded by re­gional stakeholder dialogues.

At the global level, four preparatory committees (PrepComms) would be held as part of the work of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development – April/May 2001, Janu­ary 2002 and March or April 2002 at the United Nations in New York and in Indonesia in May 2002. Global ‘thematic roundtables’ would also be organised dur­ing the second part of 2001.

Discussions on a possibly small set of priority issues for the Summit in 2002 were un­derway at this point - at national, regional and international levels. Among the is­sues being mentioned increasingly often were freshwater, energy, forests, biodiver­sity, ac­cess to information (e.g. possible extensions of the ECE Arhus Convention), poverty and environment, globalisation and trade, finance, HIV/AIDS, gender eq­uity, sustain­able production and consumption, institutional mechanisms.

The preparatory process should provide inclusive, democratic, transparent, and gender-balanced mechanisms of participation, build on work done elsewhere and appropriate information, lead to concrete, and where suitable, country-specific deci­sions and deliver new and additional resources. It should also enable the ratification of the Kyoto Proto­col, the Biosafety Protocol and the Convention on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (only 3 more ratifications needed for entry into force).

The preparatory process was also related to other UN processes: the Conference on Fi­nance for Development (March 2002), on Least Developing Countries (May 2001), on work related to conventions launched at UNCED, on follow-up to global conferences on population (Cairo), women (Beijing), Habitat (Istanbul), and food (Rome) as well as to the forthcoming international conference on Freshwater in Bonn (December 2001). 

Stakeholder involvement would be at various levels: within the CSD stakeholder dia­logues, during regional and international PrepComms, in global thematic roundta­bles, other 2002 Summit related initiatives, satellite events, host country events in South Af­rica as well as during the Summit itself.

Women’s involvement was via both the CSD Women’s Caucus, women being one of the nine ‘Major Groups’ of the CSD, through individual women members of other Major Groups as well as in thematic NGO caucuses. The Caucus now had 458 members of the list serve, based in 66 countries, and had recently started a formal registration process. The caucus had been active in outreach, facilitation and co-or­dination, in run­ning a list serve, maintaining a website, liaising with other groups, the UN and govern­ments, lobbying on women’s issues, producing position papers, statements and reports. Favourable lobbying opportunities for Major Groups (in terms of getting issues onto the agenda) occurred both at the CSD intersectional meetings since this body drew up draft decisions for the CSD itself, as well as at the multi-stakeholder dialogues. At the CSD itself, lobbying was focused on comment­ing on the evolving draft texts for decision, on the basis of submitting suggestions and line-by-line amendments.

Proposed activities for the caucus were to strengthen it as a global network, publish its work, appoint regional and issue focal points, network around the 2002 Summit process, facilitate, build capacity.  The caucus should ensure that appropriate infor­mation was both made available and was gender-sensitive, update the Women’s Ac­tion Agenda for a Healthy Planet, work on Women and Local Agenda 21, promote gender mainstream­ing of issues, play an active role in multi-stakeholder dialogues and processes, and en­courage projects in the host country and the region which had a gender component.

To achieve this, a global co-ordinated but richly diversified strategy was needed, based on transparency, taking of responsibilities, internal and external accountabil­ity and ade­quate funding.

Ways must be found to make gender a hot political issue and for serious attention to be paid to it - for as the UN Secretary-General,  Kofi Annan (March 1999) had stated “after all, women are not the feel-good factors of international policy”.

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WORKSHOP I

Gender Perspectives on Energy

The authors of the two background papers on energy, Hesphina Rukato and Ulrike Roehr made brief presentations.1

Introducing her paper, Hesphina Rukato said that projects merely designed to meet electrification growth could and would not contribute to poverty allevia­tion. Energy projects and policies were gender-blind, but recently a South Af­rican en­ergy and gender network had been set up of which she was the acting co-ordina­tor, and others were being formed in the region. ENERGIA-Africa would be making input into the 2002 Summit.

Programmes and policies needed to be designed to facilitate integrated and sus­tainable development in rural areas, and employment creation in rural ar­eas. Rural energy poverty continued to have a gender bias and current rural electrification programmes only reached a few households, and did not meet cooking fuel needs. In her country, women, in particular black women, were poorly represented in the energy sector, and virtually absent from manage­ment positions. Numerous re­search gaps remained in the field of women and energy.

Commenting on her paper Ulrike Roehr said that in the North, the most no­ticeable aspect was the neglect of gender issues: there had hardly been any re­search on the gender aspects of sustainable energy production and consump­tion, nor had there been any gender mainstreaming in policy design and im­plementation. Most recent data on women and nuclear power was from the 1980s. Women were under-repre­sented in the energy sector the largest and most powerful sector of industry, com­prising barely 6% of the workforce and less than 1% of management. Hardly any of the few women working in energy addressed gender issues.

However, in recent years a few women’s energy projects had emerged, as well as EU-funded projects to support women in energy utilities; these were rea­sons to hope that gender aspects were slowly making their way into the energy sec­tor…even though the above projects only focused on women’s participation, and did not address the issues of gender mainstreaming.

She warned against the recent strong lobbying by the nuclear industry in the Cli­mate Change negotiations and at the Commission on Sustainable Devel­opment, a trend which must be countered by women’s and other civil society organisations.

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The following points were amongst the many made by participants:

On-going plans for deep drilling in the Baltic Sea could release large quantities of methane, with possibly severe impacts.

Key issues needed to be presented to governments, and projects developed to show­case as a way of intervening in the policy process.

There was need to talk with both men and women at all levels about gender and en­ergy issues.

On-going plans for deep drilling in the Baltic Sea could release large quantities of methane, with possibly severe impacts.

Energy policy expressed in market price terms reflected present income struc­tures, while ecotaxes tended to favour certain groups. Gender aspects were linked to in­come levels, and therefore an issue for income policy.

Financial constraints held back the increased involvement of women in small-scale solar energy development.

In Africa, foreign funding agencies had put forward energy solutions for women. However, solar cookers were not suited to women’s cooking schedules. Moreover, surveys had shown that women wanted access to grid electricity, rather than bio­mass based systems, but energy solutions were not developed at grassroots level.

Major energy decisions were to be taken in 2001 outside the UN CSD frame­work, viz. within the climate change negotiations and by the G8 at its July meet­ing on the basis of the recommendations of the report of its Task Force on Re­newable Energy (www.renewablestaskforce.org.).

The All-India Women’s Conference is an active member of IRNET, the Indian Re­newable Energy Network. In India,photovoltaic arrays providing 4-5 lighting points were being acquired by low-income families, thanks to small loans. Women were being trained in biogas use and insulation. Pellets were also being manufactured from garbage, for use as cooking fuel.

Gender issues and women’s special energy needs and concerns were hardly men­tioned in major annual energy reports such as IEA’s World Energy As­sessment and the World Energy Council’s Statements.

The participants in the workshop adopted the following recommendations:

1)     analyse missing gender  analysis in NGOs/campaigns on energy and develop strate­gies to promote them

2)     develop a North-South critique of the energy industry and develop guidelines from a gender perspective for investment policies in the energy sector

3)     develop a gender analysis of all international energy-related processes and de­velop a gender analysis for the Climate Change Convention process, G8 and world energy reports. Immediate steps are to;

-     organise a Women and Climate Change Forum at COP-6 (resumed) and at sub­sequent COPs

-      organise a workshop on women and energy politics during the NGO forum par­allel to G8, Genoa, July 2001

4)     obtain commitments from shareholders of all Multilateral Development Banks to ensure gender mainstreaming in all energy policies, programmes and proj­ects so as to achieve sustainable energy development

5)     ensure that all energy-related research include a gender and sustainable development analysis through gender-balanced teams. Examples of research would include:

test assumptions on gender differences towards energy needs, use, planning and policy

cultural differences towards energy issues from a gender perspective

How can behavioural changes in energy use be achieved, differentiated be­tween sexes?

critique current energy production and consumption models from a sustain­able development and gender perspective

analyse impact of energy-related projects on women/local community control over their land/water resources

analyse effectiveness of renewable energy policies/projects in the South

6)     organise an international tribunal  at the 2002 Summit providing testimonies from victims of large energy projects and showcasing successful gender and sus­tainable development projects

7)     develop advocacy tools to link poverty, energy and gender

8) request resources for national and regional processes to implement the above recommendations

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WORKSHOP II

Gender and Transport

The authors of the two background papers on transport, Deike Peters and Kerry Hamilton, made brief presentations.1

Introducing her paper, Deike Peters highlighted that women’s aspects had been ig­nored throughout transport systems in developing countries, despite growing rec­ognition over the last ten years of gender differences in travel and activity patterns. Several multilat­eral and donor agencies had issued research, manuals and other ma­terials about gender and transport, albeit with limited distribution and impact, an exception being the mate­rial issued by the World Bank’s recently established Gen­der and Transport Thematic Group. However, in 1997, only 4% of WB transport projects had a gender component. Women continued to struggle with systems de­signed to meet men’s needs only.

Presenting her paper Kerry Hamilton stated that examples from Sweden, UK and USA highlighted widespread inequality of transport access for women in the devel­oped world, and its potential for ameliorating or exacerbating some structural disad­vantages associated with women’s roles. Transport options, or lack of them, were a determining factor in shaping women’s actual employment opportunities. In recent years however there was an increasing trend towards gender disaggregation of transport statistics, though improvements were still needed. Androcentric assump­tions still distorted per­ceptions of women’s travel, whilst also excluding travel of less than 1 mile, trips mainly made by women and children.

Meike Spitzner, Wuppertal Institute, made a brief input at the beginning of the dis­cus­sions, focusing on the need to re-think current definitions of mobility and high­lighting that equity and environmental protection were congruent. Gender equity did not mean creating the same mobility conditions for women as existed for men, nor did global eq­uity mean closing the gaps between developing and developed countries by increasing mobility in the South through introducing 'traditional', de­veloped country systems. She gave a concrete example: the rate of car ownership in developed countries was increas­ing faster than population growth in developing countries.

Therefore, developed countries’ transport systems needed to be addressed as well, to­gether with the increasing need for travel and the pressure for motorization which women all over the world were exposed to. Increased need to travel was due to an­drocentric de-integration (and de-contextualisation) of all caring economy dimen­sions – resulting in unsustainable political, economic and planning organization of societal re­lationships to time and space.

The following points were amongst the many made by participants:

Should creating gender equity mean to create the same mobility conditions for women as there are for men? Should global equity mean closing the gaps between developing and developed countries by increasing mobility in the   South through introducing 'traditional', developed country systems?

Addressing problems of mobility will require not only to ask how to increase ac­cess for the under-privileged but how to decrease consumption of the over-privileged, and reduce the need to travel.

A reintegration of space / time / caring work was needed involving a shift away from the androcentric dominant technological paradigms of development and mo­bility the 'caring economy' needs to be integrated into economic analysis and policy-making as a core component, not treated as an add-on.

Women have different (part-time, less paid) and fewer employment options largely due to the household level sexual division of labour affecting their eco­nomic posi­tion and thus their access to transport.

A concrete example of gender mainstreaming  in government policy-making was a German cabinet decision of June 1999 on “integration of gender aspects” and an in­ternal rule of procedure of  July 2000 on “gender mainstreaming”, aiming to ensure regular and active integration of gender aspects into all decision-making.

The participants in the workshop adopted the following recommendations:

1)     Environment and sustainability issues as well as gender perspectives need be fully integrated into all transport related policy-making in all departments at all levels on a regular and pro-active basis.

2)     The  definition and understanding of mobility need to be revised aiming to re­flect women's lives and responsibilities – i.e. diverse patterns of a multitude of tasks and related trips such as transporting loads for sale; accompanying  chil­dren and elderly, etc. – and enable authorities to design appropriate transport systems.

3)     In general, measures are necessary which reduce transport burdens and trans­port ex­penditures of women and men while creating equitable access and ensur­ing women's increased opportunities and participation.

4)     All transport system development must be informed by the lived experience of women; governments should integrate experts on gender-sensitive transport sys­tem planning and decision-making in their planning structures.

5)     Gender Impact Assessments (GIAs) should be integrated into EIAs which would contribute to creating Sustainability Impact Assessments. Sustainability Audits should include Gender Audits addressing the androcentric perspectives reflected in current policies (prioritising men's lives and needs) and Caring Economy Audits.

6)     Gender budget analyses are an important tool of engendering macro-economic analysis; they should be conducted to provide information about how much women- & men-power, institutional and financial resources, and research fund­ing goes into furthering women’s vs. men's interests regarding transport.

7)     Investigate changes in transport infrastructure for all countries with a gender per­spective.

8)     Governments should introduce participatory, inclusive transport planning method­ologies in order to be able to incorporate the social / gender divide of transport and travel needs.

9)     Governments should commit to guarantee sustainable, gender-sensitive transport systems. If privatisation is an option, governments have to define appropriate conditions.

10)  Governments, donor agencies and International Financial Institutions (GEF, World Bank, UNDP) should support:

research on women’s strategies to cope with transport needs, incl. e-commerce / virtual shopping; community taxis; etc

infrastructure for non-motorised transport and pedestrians

initiatives providing more bicycles for women, especially in developing coun­tries

sustainable, local, small-scale transport development.

11)  Governments and relevant agencies should conduct improved transport surveys, in­cluding gender relevant research and gender sensitive methodologies, includ­ing gender sensitive interviewing; analysing daily realities of female transport users, women's latent demands and their willingness to pay for better transport; docu­menting transport sharing models at local levels; gender sensitive stakeholder con­sultation.

12)  Governments, relevant agencies and research institutions should provide statis­tics on gender differentiated mobility, including data differentiated by length of trip rather than number of trips; by reasons to travel (men have more choice than women); car drivers vs. passengers; accounting for journeys on foot which are women's; ac­counting for typical times of travel (rush hours, i.e. men's travel, vs. non-rush hours, i.e. school run); providing figures on health issues, e.g. transport poverty (being ma­rooned in rural areas links with increased use of anti-depressants).

13)  Governments and donor agencies should support networks addressing working on gender and sustainable to develop concrete strategies towards integrating sustain­able, gender-equitable development into transport systems development, particularly as part of the preparations for the Summit in 2002.

14)  NGOs and women's organisations should

create a formalised dialogue amongst gender & environment researchers, women’s organisations and transport NGOs

create a West/East European network on gender & transport issues, (e.g. as a component of the global NGO transport network of the CSD NGO Trans­port Caucus.). Dr. Uschi Eid, Parliamentary State Secretary, German Ministry for Economic Coop­eration and Development

 

* To order this publication: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Rosenthaler Str. 40/41, 10178 Berlin, Tel. 0049-30-285340, Fax: 28534109, E-mail: info@boell.de Internet: www.boell.de

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...continued in PART II