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Go to PART II GENDER PERSPECTIVESFOR EARTH SUMMIT 2002– ENERGY, TRANSPORT, INFORMATION FOR DECISION-MAKINGReport on the International Conference * at Jagdschloss Glienicke,
Berlin, Germany Jointly
hosted by Published
by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the 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)
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. 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
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:
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 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:
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
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:
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. 3.1
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:
3.5
A side event should be held at CSD-9 on gender aspects of sustainable development
indicators. 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. 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”. 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. The following points
were amongst the many made by participants:
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:
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 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:
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
* 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 ...continued in PART II |
