Policy Circle Statements and Recommendations

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Women and Sustainable Development: Canadian Perspectives

The Draft Policy Statements are now available in print from the Sustainable Development Research Institute. They are also being prepared in electronic form for delivery through the Internet. To access them, you can either conduct an anonymous ftp session to:

ftp://sdri.ubc.ca/pub/womensconf/

or you can point a gopher client to:

gopher://sdri.ubc.ca/

This draft of the recommendations of Policy Circle 1 was constituted from the relevant documents created independently by women at the conference, and prepared for communication through the APC electronic network (Web, in Canada), in the computer conference women.wcw.canada.

Women's Conference Policy Circle 1

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

Considering the importance of recognizing the specific needs of the different categories of women in order to allow them to participate in an equitable way to the decision-making processes, we want that all the recommendations that come out of this conference lead to the development of strategies that would especially meet the needs of: the young, the elders, women with disabilities, native women, lesbians, women with very low incomes, as well as all the categories of women that are often excluded from the decision-making processes.

Considering:

that there still remains many inequities between men and women;
that women accomplish much work that is "invisible" and unaccounted for;
that women's decision-making needs to be increased in plans related to development issues;
that sustainable developement cannot occur without mutual respect and without a better partnership between men and women.

We ask that the governments and international organizations (U.N., W.B., etc)

implement measures which would value women's work that is unaccounted for and which would include this work in the development indexes;
implement measures which would encourage men and women to undertake activities that are traditionally done by the opposite sex, as much at the family level as at the community and professional levels.

1. RECOGNITION OF THE WOMEN FARMERS' WORK

Considering:

the primary importance of women's agricultural work throughout the world;
the absence of visibility and recognition of this productive work;
the importance of the family farm/family field to support a sustainable development and to allow women to get involved in it;
the need for the women farmers across the world to increase their autonomy and their means of production.

We ask the U.N. to:

• recognize the world's women farmers as agricultural professionals;
• to secure the economic recognition of their work;
• to favour women farmers'access to the means of production (land, capital,
• credit, and others);
• to promote at the level of the national governments the professional,
• economic and social recognition of women farmers
• the family farm/family field as a support of the agricultural ativities.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

Preamble:

The term "development" has until recently been linked to monetary values, the consumption of goods, and production increase. We believe that it is very important that all other human dimensions also be taken into consideration.

Considering:

that women are particularly concerned about the quality of their environment;
that air, water, and soil contamination is a hazard to animal life, vegetation and human health;
that the overexploitation of natural resources (wood, water, fossil fuels, etc) overincreases the present profits at the expense of long-term productivity;
that in the present system, the people responsible for the harms do not cover the totality of the costs, and that in the end it is the citizens who pay;
the importance of acquiring the environmental knowledge, values and skills necessary to implement a sustainable development.

We ask the U.N.:

• that the "paying polluter" principle be recognized in the countries'legislation;
• that an ecotax be imposed on the products and activities that pollute, damage the ecosystems or encroach upon the natural resources;
• that the research of appropriate technologies be encouraged;
• that the information and education programmes concerning the environment and the environmental protection be implemented.

3. A STRATEGY OF SOCIAL DIALOGUE

Given:

that a sustainable development cannot occur without a concerted effort of the populations;
that although they are essential, the information and education campaigns for the population cannot by themselves be the only means to implement a sustainable development;
that the adoption of strategies of social dialogue and the support of collective action plans should be favoured in order to facilitate the implementation of a sustainable development.

We ask:

• that the States favour the implementation of mechanisms based on the participatory democracy model so that political and governmental programmes that may have an impact on the quality of the environment and of the development method may be evaluated in association with the population and in a transparent fashion. The consultation models to be favoured must be simple, inexpensive, forthright, transparent and easily accessible to all citizens.
• that the dialogue and partnership with the industry be encouraged.

4. WOMEN IN TRANSPORTATION

Given:

that women from the North and the South are faced with various problems that were caused by a non-sustainable urban and regional development that was supported by inappropriate and costly transportation systems;
that the women's transport burden remains invisible throughout the world, and that they devote a huge amount of time and energy to this;
the context of resource scarcity in the countries of the South, particularly for water and fuels;
that most women live in the South;
that in the South, and particularly in the rural settings, the tedious transport tasks are mostly done by women, and that the transport of burdens has an impact on their health;
that one of the priorities of the women in the South has been identified by the latter as the improvement of the transport burden.

We ask the U.N.:

• To support and favour the development of transportation systems that must reduce the women's physical burden in the South while allowing them to keep control over their resources, their products and their productivity.
• To favour measures that must make the women's contribution to transport visible in a context of a sustainable urban and regional development.

5. VALUING RURAL REGIONS

Considering:

the need to provide the rural populations with conditions of life that would allow them to live a decent life and to develop themselves;
the importance of securing a balanced distribution between rural and urban populations.

We ask the U.N.:

• to secure the fulfilment of the rural populations' fundamental needs;
• to support the sustainable development of rural regions;
• to support local development plans;
• to commit the national governments to the valorization of rural regions, especially through the creation of sustainable jobs for the young, the implementation of appropriate infrastructures, and a proper training of the populations.

6. STRATEGIES FOR INCLUDING THE PERSPECTIVES OF INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN THE CONSULTATION AND DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Believing that "the world's Indigenous Peoples have long been denied basic human rights or acknowledgement of their contribution to world culture" (Women's Action Agenda 21, para 4, p.14), and recognizing that a genuine sharing of power and decision-making processes requires the consultation and opinion of Indigenous Women,

We recommend that all governments and international development agencies:

• recognize the rights and existence of Indigenous People;
• recognize the cultural perspectives of Indigenous People in all aspects of social, economic, environmental, justice and educational practices;
• commit financial and other resources to appropriate education and training for Indigenous People and their communities to develop their capacities to achieve sustainable self-development and contribute to, and participate in sustainable and equitable development at the local, national and international levels.

7. WOMEN'S QUALITY OF LIFE IN URBAN SETTINGS

Considering:

the need to develop our cities by taking into account the women's needs and by securing their full participation to the urban planning processes;
the violence against women and the feeling of insecurity of the women who live in an urban setting as obstacles to the socio-economic equality of women.

We ask governmental authorities at all levels to support the local/municipal powers or any authority in charge of urban planning in order to:

• implement measures that would encourage women's participation in the urban
• planning and management processes at the level of the districts and the cities;
• to associate themselves with women's groups, community organizations, and with public and private institutions in order to create projects that would aim at increasing women's security and feeling of security in the cities, with the idea of developing women's autonomy and leadership;
• to implement programmes leading to equality in order to secure an equitable representation of women within the public sphere of power (political and administrative authorities).

8. VALUING CHILDCARE

Recognizing the value of unwaged women's work in community initiatives, early childhood education, cultural perpetuation, home based economics and stabilization of the basic social unit: the family, we propose:

• equal access to financial support regarding childcare on the basis of family income (presuming fair access to family income) regardless of the parental choices of care giving - at home parenting or institutional;
• equal access to training programmes for all child care givers, waged or unwaged.

9. WOMEN'S EDUCATION AND INTERNATIONAL AID

Considering:

that many women are illiterate or have little education, including a majority of women in developing countries;
that the women's access to education is essential to reduce inequities and move towards a sustainable development.

We ask that:

the international development agencies as well as all the governments give priority to educational programmes that correspond to the women's reality and needs, particularly programmes that teach functional writing, and that these programmes be elaborated in collaboration with women.

PROCESS

Our group, which was bilingual and used the support of simultaneous translation, represented a variety of interests and backgrounds from both English and French regions of Canada as well women from Mali and New Zealand. All four of the major themes of community, creativity, economics and decision making were represented by the interests of the participants. The main issues concerning the group were summarized as: women in agriculture and rural living, women in community projects, women in social programmes, women in business, women in urban planning, women in transportation, women and recognition of house work, women and child rearing, economic recognition of women's work and insufficient use of mass media to promote women's positive contribution to society. The general desire of the group was to "strengthen and empower women's contribution to society".

The policy circle began to look at these issues from a community point of view. It soon became evident that there was an urban/rural split in the group regarding the way these problems were viewed. To discuss this issue further, the participants were divided into several groups of 4 or 5 persons, where the similarities and differences of problems in rural and urban settings were examined. Participants concluded that there was little difference in the kinds of problems in the two areas but there was a need to create a link between the two communities.

By our third meeting it was resolved that the policies which would come out of this circle would address the following issues:

They would recognize:

First Nations women's special needs;
women's professional roles;
women's domestic roles;
the economic relationship between rural and urban life;
children and children as an integral part of society;
the importance of correcting the stereotypical images of women.
They would secure women:

against violence;
against pollution;
with economic capacity in rural areas, especially young women.

They would address the needs of:

education and training for women;
a decent quality of life for women;
a proper daycare system;
economic capacity of credit for women, especially women farmers;
technological capacity for women.

It was then realized that since many of the women had specific interests in terms of the policies they wished to put forward, there was a need for solidarity among the participants. We came to understand that in order to solve our specific problems, we needed to support the specific problems of other women. Solidarity among women was the only way fundamental changes of the women's condition would occur.

Individual or small groups of participants then presented policies they had formulated. Each one was individually discussed. Minor changes were made but in the end all were approved by the group. The recommendations were unanimously approved.

Our policy circle ended with a great sense of mutual respect, solidarity and accomplishment among the participants. Tears flowed, hugs were exchanged, telephone numbers and addresses were traded and group photos were taken. In many ways, we embodied the very decision-making process we were pushing for on the larger scale.

WHAT CAN I OR MY ORGANIZATION CAN DO TO CONTINUE TO IMPLEMENT THESE POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS?

Please send your notes to:

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