Canada and Agenda
21Canada and Agenda
21
CHAPTER 24
Global Action for Women Towards Sustainable and Equitable Development
-- Theodora Carroll-Foster --
Theodora Carroll-Foster is the Coordinator/Advisor of the Agenda 21 Unit at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author with input from other stakeholders, and do not necessarily represent the views of the IDRC, the Government of Canada, or the Projet de Société.
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
Various international conventions and plans of action to improve women's situations exist. These include, among others, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), the International Labour Organization and UNESCO Conventions to end gender-based discrimination and to ensure women's access to land and water resources, education and employment, the 1990 World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, and the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, which recognized the important linkages between women's roles in development and the protection of the environment, and adopted measures to enhance women's participation in national eco-system management and control of environmental degradation.
But the improvement in the status of women remains slow. Women, who are a majority of the world's population, play integral roles in environment and development, yet are still not properly represented or involved in planning, decision-making and implementation. With better integration in all sectors and at all levels of decision making, women could play even greater roles in sustainable development, including economic improvements, the determination of family size and reduced population growth. Women are environmental managers and guardians of resource stocks, educators, facilitators and negotiators, and they could contribute more effectively to their families' and communities' improvements if they were more systematically integrated.
Women's capabilities and capacities speak for themselves. For example:
Women are responsible for up to 70% of all the production, processing and marketing of food in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In Kenya, as the main participants in the National Soil Conservation Program, women have terraced over 40% of the nation's more than 360,000 farms.
In numerous countries, like Nepal and Burkina Faso, women spend upwards of 4 hours a day fetching fuelwood and water, spend hours grinding grain, cooking and caring for their families, and work in poorly paid employment. The lack of adequate, affordable and accessible family planning services, combined with inadequate health care, cause at least 500,000 women to die each year of pregnancy and berthing complications, while at least another known 500,000 die from back-alley abortions.
In Canada, wome own and operate an increasing majority of small and medium sized enterprises and are now responsible for the majority of innovative start-up businesses.
PROGRAM AREAS AND OBJECTIVES
The following eight objectives were proposed to national governments as essential to implementing Chapter 24.
(1)Implement the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, particularly with regard to women's participation in national ecosystem management and control of environmental degradation.
(2)Increase the proportion of women decision-makers, planners, technical advisers, managers and extension workers in environment and development fields.
(3)Consider developing and issuing by the year 2000 a strategy of changes necessary to eliminate constitutional, legal, administrative, cultural, behavioral, social and economic obstacles to women's full participation in sustainable development and in public life.
(4)Establish by the year 1995 mechanisms at the national, regional and international levels to assess the implementation and impact of development and environment policies and programs on women, and to ensure their contributions and benefits.
(5)Assess, review, revise and implement, where appropriate, curricula and other educational material, with a view to promoting the dissemination to both men and women of gender-relevant knowledge and valuation of women's roles through formal and non-formal education, as well as through training institutions, in collaboration with non-governmental organizations.
(6)Formulate and implement clear governmental policies and national guidelines, strategies and plans for the achievement of equality in all aspects of society, including the promotion of women's literacy, education, training, nutrition and health. Promote women's participation in key decision-making positions and in management of the environment, particularly as it pertains to their access to resources, by facilitating better access to all forms of credit, particularly in the informal sector, taking measures towards ensuring women's access to property rights as well as agricultural inputs and implements.
(7)Implement, as a matter of urgency, in accordance with country-specific conditions, measures to ensure that women and men have the same right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and have access to information, education and means, as appropriate, to enable them to exercise this right in keeping with their freedom, dignity and personally held values.
(8)Consider adopting, strengthening and enforcing legislation prohibiting violence against women and take all necessary administrative, social and educational measures to eliminate violence against women in all its forms.
CANADIAN POSITIONS AT RIO
1. Official Canadian Position
The UNCED process provided an opportunity for the broad-based participation of women's groups which succeeded in integrating women's concerns in all UNCED documents. Widespread support for this chapter came from both developed and developing countries, and the changes proposed helped to strengthen the text. Throughout the preparatory process, Canada, with support from the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand and Australia, played a leading role in forging partnerships with the various major groups and the NGOs to ensure support for the inclusion of women and the other major groups in Agenda 21. Through its Inter-departmental Working Group, which drew upon the expertise of government, women's organizations, business, and NGOs, Canada prepared a number of suggestions which were included in the final text. The Women's Caucus, an informal group that emerged during the conference preparatory process, circulated the suggested changes to other delegations, which resulted in a stronger chapter. Although the chapter recommended changes within the UN system in all policies, programs and activities, concern remained that the follow-up recommended in Agenda 21 would be slow to come, due to entrenched attitudes, biases, and infrastructure.
Status of Women Canada (SWC), with substantive inputs from CIDA, IDRC and others, detailed where women should be reflected in each chapter of the draft Agenda 21 document. This study was made available, through the NGO members of the delegation, to the women who were attending the final PrepCom in New York, enhancing their inputs into the PrepCom and then into the Earth Summit itself.
2.Non-Governmental Organizations
The position of NGOs was that women, who contribute more than half the effort to social welfare, should be recognized as a powerful source for change, and that women's status in decision-making and social processes should be properly taken into account so as to reflect their contributions to society and the economy.
The Global Women's Forum affirmed that the participation of women in the conduct of daily life and policy-making from the community level to the international level is indispensable. Many of the NGO treaties that emerged from Rio made explicit reference to the negative effects on society that are the result of the exclusion of women, and they call for women's empowerment and inclusion.
3.Business and Industry
In Canada women are responsible for over 60% of the start-ups of small business (including eco-entrepreneurships) and comprise 60-70% of the environmental movement's voluntary and paid work force. They are making substantial contributions to sustainable development in all its aspects, despite on-going constraints of finance, credit, marketing and technology, and the tendency of policy and decision-makers and of CEOs not to integrate them fully in all sustainatibility plans and processes.
4.Indigenous
At Rio, the indigenous people asserted that indigenous women's rights must be respected and that women must be included in all local, national, regional and international organizations. In addition, elders, men and women must be recognized and respected as teachers of the young people.
Also, at local, national, and international levels, governments must commit funds to the provision of new and existing resources for the education and training needed by indigenous peoples, to achieve their sustainable development. In order to contribute and to participate in sustainable and equitable development at all levels, particular attention in the indigenous community should be focused on women (along with children and youth).
Indigenous Peoples advised that gender, cultural and generational continuity are important holistic concepts to Indigenous Peoples development and philosophy.
COMMITMENTS MADE BY CANADIANS
1.Legally-binding Documents
None.
2.Political Pronouncements
In the National Statement of Canada, delivered on June 11, 1992 at UNCED, Minister of the Environment Jean Charest stated, "(t)he crucial role of women for the implementation of Agenda 21 has been widely acknowledged but they have been denied too long their rightful place in decision-making."
3.Alternative NGO Treaties and Kari-Oca
NGO Treaties
At the same time as UNCED, two major international events were also held at Rio. One was the International Non-Governmental Organization Forum (Global Forum). At the Global Forum, 3,100 NGOs discussed a number of matters related to environment and development and produced a parallel set of documents: an NGO Earth Charter and 38 Alternative NGO Treaties. Of these treaties, one addressed the issues discussed in Chapter 24.
A Global Women's Treaty for NGOs Seeking a Just and Healthy Plant
In this treaty, the NGOs in Rio pledged to demand and work for gender balance in all aspects and at all levels of policy making, government and NGO activity. The NGOs called on all to comply with international agreements that prohibit discrimination against women. To raise the status of women requires policies and actions that assure equal access to education, information, fair wages, safe working conditions, inheritance rights, credit, appropriate technology, environmentally friendly consumer products and health care. The treaty also called on society to condemn domestic and sexual violence.
The Global Women's Treaty addresses the population problem as an issue of women's reproductive rights.
Kari-Oca
The second alternative forum at Rio was the International Conference on Territory, Environment and Development (the Kari-Oca Conference). The Kari-Oca Conference was held immediately prior to UNCED by and for the world's indigenous peoples. More than 650 indigenous representatives participated in meetings and cultural events during the conference. They developed and adopted a 109-point Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter.
DEFICIENCIES, GAPS AND CONSTRAINTS WITHIN THIS AGENDA 21 CHAPTER
No linkage is made between Chapter 24 and the other Agenda 21 chapters. More effort should have been made to ensure that women, their needs, concerns, role and participation were integrated throughout the other Agenda 21 chapters (such as Chapter 12 on Combatting Desertification and Drought or Chapter 14 on Sustainable Agriculture), rather than being dealt with in an isolated manner.
There is also no linkage made to other key groups, including workers (Ch. 29), business (Ch.30), the scientific and technical community (Ch.31), NGOs (Ch.27), and indigenous people (Ch.26). In addition to governments, these other groups need to undertake measures that ensure the full and equal participation of women in their sustainable development policies and programs, and yet this was not acknowledged in the chapter.
Armed hostilities are one of the major causes of human suffering and environmental degradation in many countries. Chapter 24 is one of the few chapters that refers to this problem. However, it does not elaborate on the issue other than to suggest that some research on the impact of armed hostilities on women should be undertaken.
Means of implementation are non-existent in Chapter 24. There is no adequate estimate of the cost of implementing the activities outlined in this chapter. This might be indicative of the UNCED Secretariat's or delegates' underestimation of the enormity of the problem. There appears to be an implicit expectation that governments will determine the actual costs and financial terms of the chapter, once implementation programs are decided upon. Women's Global Action programs are likely to be under-implemented and under-funded.
Chapter 24 indicates that the Secretary-General of the United Nations should review the success of all UN agencies, including those with a focus on women (UNIFEM, INSTRAW), in meeting development and environment objectives and in including (and increasing) women in senior decision-making roles. However, Chapter 24 neglects to specifically mention the World Bank and the regional banks that have major impacts on the environment and on women's lives.
A final major deficiency in Chapter 24, is that it fails to discuss many of the important issues facing women in the industrialized countries. Women in western countries often bear the major responsibility for household work and child care while also participating in the paid workforce. There is a higher proportion of women than men living in poverty in industrialized countries, and many women in the workforce continue to earn less than their male counterparts. Violence against women continues to be revealed as a major social issue. These are important issues which need to be addressed and they should have been included in this chapter.
COMPARISON BETWEEN CURRENT CANADIAN GOVERNMENT POLICY AND COMMITMENTS MADE
The advancement of women is an integral component of Canadian foreign and aid policy. Canada has been active in numerous United Nations forums (Commission on the Status of Women, Commission on Human Rights, UNESCO, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, etc.) in supporting the advancement of women's concerns. Such involvement has extended also to other international forums, including the Commonwealth Women's Affairs Ministers Meetings, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission of Women etc.
Canada's International Development Agency (CIDA) adopted a Policy Framework for Women in Development in 1984. It was designed to integrate women of the Third World in the development process, both as agents and beneficiaries. A new interim Women in Development policy has been adopted for 1993-94. It goes beyond the 1984 emphasis on the role of women as agents and beneficiaries, to recognize a more active and integral role for women in the development process.
Canada has supported many initiatives at the international level. The current domestic situation in Canada, however, has seen cutbacks to social programs and training and the elimination of a national child care program. These kinds of decisions continue to limit the opportunities for women in Canada to improve their positions and increase their roles in decision-making.
CANADIAN ACTIVITIES EVOLVING THROUGH THE SUSTAINABILITY PROCESS
Apart from the initiatives sustained and launched by government entities such as Status of Women Canada, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the Department of Health and Welfare, many activities have been initiated by Canadian development NGOs (Cause Canada, Unitarian Service Committee Canada, YWCA, Micah Institute of Southern Alberta) and environmental NGOs (Cultural Survival Canada, WEED Foundation, Friends of the Earth), as well as by academic institutions such as Sir Sandford Fleming College and the B.C. Institute for Sustainable Development.
The Women and Environment Education and Development (WEED) Foundation
WEED has a project underway called Building Women's Network for Sustainability. It was inspired by women's impact on the UNCED. In the wake of UNCED, Canadian women are ready to turn the resolution of Agenda 21 into action. Building Women's Networks for Sustainability is one response to the commitments made by Canada in Rio to recognize women as equal partners in policy-making and decision-making in all aspects of environmental management.
Women and Sustainable Development: A Canadian Perspective is a national conference being held by the Sustainable Development Research Institute, UBC; Simon Fraser University Department of Women's Studies, and the Centre for Sustainable Regional Development, University of Victoria. the objectives of the conference are to substantively prepare Canadian women working in the area of sustainable development to form part of the NGO response to the 1995 Bejing International Women's Conference; to bring female activists and female researchers together to collectively look at the meaning and implementation of sustainable development in Canada; and to build a vibrant domestic network between indigenous and immigrant women of all ages, young and senior women working in the area of sustainable development from the peace, feminist, academic and environment communities. Organized around four main theme: women and decision-making; women and economics; women and community; women and creativity, the conference will be held in Vancouver, May 27-June 1, 1994.
Most programs are still in an embryonic stage of planning and implementation, but they range from building women's networks for sustainability and "a just and healthy planet" to training, and the more traditional health and community development.
OTHER RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY-RELATED FORA
The following fora are especially relevant for improving women's status and have implemented a wide variety of programs to effect positive changes for women:
United Nations (UNIFEM)
INSTRAW
United Nations (UNICEF)
United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
International Labour Organization (ILO)
United Nations Family Planning Association (UNFPA)
Canada has been, and continues to be, a supporter and funder of these international fora.
Such international financial institutions as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank purport to support women's status and improvement, but do so somewhat peripherally and marginally on the whole.
SUGGESTED READINGS AND INFORMATION SOURCES
Boonsue, Kornvipa. Women's Development Models and Gender Analysis, A Review, (Bangkok: Asian Institute of Technology, 1992).
Carroll-Foster, Theodora. Women, Religion and Development - The Impact of Religion on Women's Development, (Connecticut: Praeger/Greenwood Press, 1982).
Dankelman, Irene and Joan Davidson. Women and Environment in the Third World: Alliance for the Future, (London: Earthscan, 1988).
Esserman, Lauren. "Women Break into the Process", International News, MS., (New York: September-October 1992).
Government of Canada. Canada's Green Plan, (Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1990).
. Canada's Green Plan and the Earth Summit, (Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1992).
. Canada's National Report: United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Brazil, June 1992, (Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1991).
. Sharing Our Future, "Women in Development", (Ottawa: Canadian International Development Agency).
International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Agenda 21: Abstracts, Reviews and Commentaries, (Theodora Carroll-Foster, editor), (Ottawa: IDRC, 1993).
IIED. "Women in Environment and Urbanization: Strategies for Action and the Potential for Change", Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 3, No. 2, October 1991, London.
International Women's Tribune Centre. "Women Making Money", Women and Development Quarterly, (New York: International Women's Tribune Centre).
Keating, Michael. Agenda for Change: A Plain Language Version of Agenda 21 and the Other Rio Agreements, (Geneva: Centre for Our Common Future, 1993).
Report of the UNCED/UNICEF/UNFPA Symposium on Poverty and Environmental Degradation. "Women and Children First", United National Conference on Environment and Development Research Paper No. 2, July 1991.
Shields, Margaret. Statement at UNCED, INSTRAW, and Bella Abzug, Statement at the Plenary at UNCED, June 9, 1992.
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Women, Environment, Development - Agenda 21, An Easy Reference to the Specific Recommendations on Women, (New York: 1992).
Women and Environments Education and Development Foundation, Women and Environment -Charting a New Environmental Course, (Toronto: Winter/Spring 1991).
Women's Environment and Development Organization, Women's Action Agenda, (New York: 1992).
World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Common Future, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
Wyman, Miriam. "Women and UNCED - A Personal Perspective", (Toronto: June 1992).
Information Sources:
Cultural Survival Canada, 1 Nicholas Street, Suite 620, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7B7, tel (613) 233-4653, fax (613) 233-2292.
International Development Research Centre, PO Box 8500, Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 3H9, tel (613) 236-6163, fax (613)
Sustainable Development Research Institute, University of British Columbia, B-5, 2202, Main Mall, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z4, tel (614) 822-8198, fax (604) 822-9191.
Women and Environments Education and Development Foundation (WEED), 736 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2R4.
Cite as: Projet de société: Canada and Agenda 21.Winnipeg: IISD, 1995. Online. Internet. http://iisd.ca/worldsd/canada/projet/c24.htm.
