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Executive Summary of the Final Report
[Go back to About Vancouver and
Beijing...] The full report is available from the Sustainable Development Research Institute. The Women and Sustainable Development: Canadian Perspectives Conference was held at the University of British Columbia, May 27 to May 31, 1994. This five-day intensive assembly brought together women from across Canada and developing countries to share their experiences and knowledge on sustainable development. Over five hundred women from across Canada and internationally met to prepare a set of policy recommendations both for domestic implementation and for the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In addition to examining sustainable development from a gender perspective, it was about many things. It was about creating safe spaces, through the use of daily policy circles, where women who traditionally are not empowered to speak were given the opportunity to be heard and more importantly listened to. It was about developing a new process, where the process became the product, the dialogue between and among the participants was equally valued as the presentations and workshops. It was about formality and informality, about accommodating different values, perspectives and approaches to learning and imparting information. It was personal and political. It was about diversity (regional, cultural, knowledge and experience) and the full expression of that diversity in the policy circles. That is, the bringing together of academics, business people and environmental activists, North and South, brought entirely different perspectives to the process. That diversity is reflected in the following statistics about the composition of the Conference: Over 500 women and men attended as participants, presenters, facilitators, rapporteurs, artists, and volunteers. Among the 407 participants at the conference were:
Regional representation:
9 women from Newfoundland
The structure of the Conference was unique. Guided by principles of inclusiveness, non-hierarchy, and open dialogue, the Steering Committee designed a participatory process which featured educational workshops in the mornings and policy circles in the afternoon. The workshops were programmed by theme day and consisted of presentations and interactive sessions designed by women in response to the conference Call for Communications. This was distributed widely in the late autumn and winter months, and invited women to attend the Conference as presenters to share their experiences and expertise on sustainable development. Respondents were encouraged to use a variety of mediums (including video, academic papers, story telling interactive workshops etc.) to address one of the four theme areas: women and community, women and creativity, women and economics and women and decision-making. Over 300 women responded to the Call for Communications with responses ranging from a proposed workshop connecting fisherwomen in Newfoundland by teleconference - to a model United Nations workshop - to a panel presentation on women and micro-enterprise. The policy circles, which were the focal point of the policy dialogue process, were structured as mini-roundtables. Each circle brought together women from a diversity of backgrounds in an open, consensus based decision-making process. The task of the circles was to develop a series of policy options, both domestically and for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Although the process for developing policy options varied from one circle to the next, by the final day each circle had prepared a statement of series of recommendations. These recommendations are being compiled into a summary document which will be distributed at the end of September 1994. "Bitchiness and Boundaries" were daily sessions which offered personal skills development in conflict resolution, negotiation and mediation. These sessions highlighted the value-laden and conflictual nature of many of issues involved in sustainable development. The majority of participants rated these sessions as excellent, particularly because of the different perspectives they learned from them. Unlike many conferences of its kind, the Women and Sustainable Development Conference emphasized the important contribution of artists to the visioning, educational and policy dialogue processes. Throughout the Conference site artists could be seen working on their craft or installations. An exhibition entitled "Unraveling the Patterns: Reweaving the Future" opened on Friday May 27, 1994 and showcased the work of elder women artists. In the halls of the main concourse, community murals addressed the question of community sustainability. Throughout the weekend, the "Creativity in Action" fair brought to together local artists with Conference participants to market their crafts, network, and exchange ideas. And on Sunday, the public was invited to join the Conference at "Thru the Heart", a fair celebrating women and creativity. Communication at the Conference was also handled in a non-traditional manner. To enable as much small group interaction as possible, plenaries were restricted to the opening, closing and morning check-ins. A daily bulletin entitled the conference Communiqué was produced and distributed each morning. The Communiqué which directly reported on the proceedings of the conference, was well used by participants and became an important networking and information tool throughout the five days. Overall, the majority of the participants were very pleased with the conference. Many participants were very encouraged (and in some cases, thrilled) with the diversity of ethnocultural communities, grassroots organizations, socio-economic groups and ages represented at the conference. Policy circles, networking and the presence of women from the South were identified as strengths of the conference. Problems with programming of workshops, lack of structure in the policy circles and too little time in plenary were identified as shortcomings. A number of initiatives emerged immediately out of the conference and include: A World Wide Day of Women's Actions. Conference participants made a commitment to mark September 6, 1995 as A World Wide Day of Women's Actions. Foreign Policy Review Process. The conference endorsed a series of recommendations to the Special Parliamentary Committee Reviewing Canadian Foreign Policy, which were presented at the Committee's hearings in Vancouver, May 30, 1994 by a delegation of participants from the Conference. A Directory of Women and Sustainable Development. The International Institute on Sustainable Development will be compiling an on-line directory of Women and Sustainable Development in Canada, based on the information gathered for the conference database. Policy Summary Document. The summary report of the recommendations of the policy circles will be compiled and distributed to participants, as well as to key Ministers, government departments, non-government and quasi government organizations working in the area of sustainable development. Code of Environmental Ethics. The Code of Environmental Ethics, developed by Canadian non-government organizations in association with CIDA, was endorsed by a number of organizations and individuals attending the conference. Women and Sustainable Development Poster. Prepared as background documentation for the conference, this educational poster provides an historical account of women's involvement in sustainable development in Canada. Conference Communiqué. The highlights of each day of the conference have been captured in a series of five bilingual issues of the Conference Communiqué. Canadian Young Women's Network. Through the organizational work of the China Canada Young Women's Network, the first Canadian Young Women's Network was created by the youth participants at the Conference. Women and Forestry Network. This network was created by the First Nations women and the other Canadian women who participated in the workshop "Feminist Perspectives on Forest Issues in Canada". First Nations Working Group For Beijing. This group is being organized by Dena Carroll of Victoria to assist other First nations women to attend the Beijing preparatory meeting to be held in Winnipeg in August. Lesbian International Coalition. In terms of evaluating the Conference, we believe that not one person left this Conference without having learned something, if not professionally, then personally. Other planned events catalyzed in the near term by the conference include a workshop at the University of Manitoba; a summer Institute at the University of Victoria in July 1995 with the objective of establishing a research program on women and sustainable development; and a workshop in Toronto, conducted by WEED. Once the Conference documents are distributed to the 500 participants, we expect to see the ripples spreading out even further.
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