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Call For Action
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Beijing...] A CALL FOR ACTION emerged from the deliberations of participants at Women and Sustainable Development, Canadian Perspectives -- Vancouver, May 27-31, 1994. The following statement was prepared for communication through the APC electronic network, in the computer conference women.wcw. canada. It is followed by the PLAN OF ACTION statement prepared at the Conference, taken from Draft Policy statements, Women and Sustainable Development: Canadian Perspectives, Vancouver: Sustainable Development Research Institute, 1994. Appendix 1. In response for this Call for Action, Falls Brook Center, Canada and Environment Liason Center International Kenya are coordinating Seeding the Future as part of the actions leating to Beijing in 1995.
A WORLD WIDE DAY OF WOMEN'S ACTION -- SEPTEMBER 6, 1995 Many women's groups around the world are preparing for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace and its non-government organization (NGO) Forum which will take place in Beijing, China, September, 1995. At an international conference on women and sustainability attended by women from all over Canada and the world in Vancouver, Canada in May 1994, the following proposal was endorsed in the plenary with a standing ovation: There is an urgent need for creative acitions by women (people) everywhere to strengthen the policy development and lobbying efforts to stop the violence against women, children and the planet happening everywhere today. The Worldwide Day of Women's Actions is proposed for September 6th 1994 following the Beijing Non Government Organizations (NGO) Forum and the launch of the official United Nations Women's Summit when all the world's leaders and the world media will be focused on women for a brief moment. Convinced that the deliberations of the world's leaders and the multitude of actions by women in Beijing will be energized and empowered with the many simultaneous, diverse, creative effective actions by billions of women all over the world, it is anticipated that this international campaign of actions will reach a crescendo coinciding with the Beijing Women's Summit. This is a vital historic moment for all women, towards which we can direct our ideas, hopes, energy and our power. That is why this important conference must not be seen as a remote high power summit of high ranking government officials (men or women). Nor must it only be an occasion for the meeting of the 30,000 NGO leaders around the official summit; rather, it must be an occasion of all women everywhere. It should be part of a process involving the direct action and activities all over the world. More than an event, it should be part of a process building towards going beyond September 1995. September 6 was pinpointed as a time which will give the NGO women in Beijing time to plan, coordinate and synchronize their day of action within the overall framework of activities there. In our communities, we have 15 months to create this process, a time to span both short and long enough to enable us to develop and implement our ideas and actions. Actions should focus on key issues and relationships such as:
The UN Summit provides women worldwide with an important opportunity to share the media limelight that will be focused on women's issues/solutions and may be more open to women's voices than usual. It will not happen automatically or easily, even on such a historic moment as this, which is why we must use every creative, imaginative, active means possible to ensure that the media -- international and local -- have to watch, listen and report on what we are saying and doing. Therefore, the campaign must reach out to all women on this day to ensure that there will be independent and diverse as well as coordinated and common actions. There may also be private as well as public activities. What is most important is that we be visible, effective and persuasive. The lead up to Beijing can be the focus for women to act together to make the world feel the real importance and power of women. These activities can act as a catalyst for the perpetual motion of linking into the many networks (issue specific, sectoral, national, regional, north/south) and the hundreds of thousands of women's organizations linked to them into one amazing worldwide women's movement on that day and beyond! We cannot predict what different organizations forms these actions will take, but we can and must find the means to make our interactions, exchanges and actions more effective in resulting in our policies and proposals becoming the whole world's policies for the future of our communities, peoples and the earth. Some campaign issues/questions could include:
- What are your region's essential or key issues or elements to focus on?
PLAN OF ACTION Statement prepared at the Vancouver Conference A group of about 35 women -- representing most of the policy circles -- met last night in a response to an invitation to share ideas about a PLAN OF ACTION. This idea emerged from the discussions of policy circle #6 and their desire to focus on action. We feel that policy development is important, and persuading governments to accept and implement our policies is a valid, worthwhile endeavour, but not all of us have the necessary skills for such high level lobbying processes, and not all of us are convinced that the returns on governmental lobbying are equal to the time, energies and efforts required. We feel that we should go beyond only policy development and lobbying towards a broader programme of actions. This would actually back up and strengthen that lobbying with active, creative and effective actions around policies and issues by women everywhere. We here are not all from Canada -- and we do not all have governments that are even as minimally responsive and responsible as the Canadain government is. So, if we women from outside Canada --especially from countries of the south --are to get more, to contribute more to this meeting, and if we are to go back toour countries with something really excitng and empowering to women there, we need an International Campaign of Actions to be something additional,something important and in fact for us, something central to emerge from this Conference. This was agreed to by all women, from the ‘north and south, at the meeting Sunday Night. At that meeting, we also agreed that the Beijing Conference on Women provides an important focus, in fact a vital historic moment for all women, towards which we can direct our ideas, our hopes, our energy and our power. The Beijing Conference on Women must not be a remote high powered summit of high ranking government leaders (men or women). It must not even be only an occasion for the meetings of 30,000 women NGO leaders around the official summit. Beijing must be an event or an occasion for all women everywhere. Beijing should not be just an 'event'. The summit should be part of a process building towards, and going beyond September l995. It should be a process involving the direct action and activities of women throughout the world. We have 15 months to create this process - which is a time span both short enough and long enough to enable us to develop and implement our ideas and actions. We are convinced that the deliberations of the world leaders, and even the multitude of actions by our women, will be immensely energised and empowered if there are all sorts of simultaneously diverse, creative, effective actions by the millions and billions of women of the whole world. Therefore we propose that there should be an international campaign of actions by women reaching a climax in a worldwide women's day of actions coinciding with Beijing. We have tentatively proposed Tuesday, September 6th, l995 as the date. This will give our NGO women at Beijing time to discuss and plan and coordinate their day of actions at Beijing. It will also be the day after the launch of the summit when all the world's leaders and all the world's media will be focused on Beijing. The UN Summit provides women worldwide with an important opportunity to share the media limelight that will be (temporarily) focused on women and women's issues/solutions. The media may be more open to women's voices than usual. It will not happen automatically or easily, even on such historic occasions as this. That is why we must use every creative, imaginative, active way possible to ensure that the media - international and local -have to look at and listen to us, and report on what we are saying and doing. We have to reach out to all women in our communities, our nations and the world on this day. We must encourage independent and diverse as well as coordinated and common actions. We must allow for individual and private as well as collective and public action. The latter is particularly important to make our society aware of what we are saying and doing. We must make ourselves visible, effective and persuasive. Beijing is even more fundamentaly important than this. It can be the focus for us all to act together, to come together, to really feel -- and make the wolrd feel -- the power, the real importance of women. Beijing can and must also act as a catalyst to set off a chain reation into the many networks (issue-specific, sectoral, national, regional, north-south) all over the world -- and with the hundreds of thousands of women’s organizations linked into these networks to create one amazing world wide movement. We don’t know whether this movement can (or should) take organizational form, but we can and must begin to find ways to make our intersation, exchanges, and actions more effective, and to make our policies and proposals the whole world’s policies for the future of communities, peoples and humankind of this planet.
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