Thelma Kay, chief of the Women in Development Section of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) informed the Caucus that the high level (ministerial) inter-governmental meeting to prepare for Beijing+5 will happen from 26-29 October 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand. This is an important meeting because this will be the last opportunity for the region to provide input into the review process.
Priot to this, there will be an experts meeting from 1-2 April 1999 to prepare for the regional meeting. There will also be consultation meetings among different international organizations (e.g. IOM) on what needs to be done for the review.
The regional meeting in October will have the following objectives:
- Review and appraise the PFA and the Jakarta Plan of Action that details the regional plan
- Look at the impact on women of developments such globalization, science and technology, and human security without reopening or renegotiating the PFA
- Consider regional specificities such as immense poverty, trafficking, violence in different forms, property rights and others
In terms of substantive preparations, ESCAP is looking at:
- Official questionnaires on implementation of the PFA that have been sent out to governments to respond to by end of April; NGOs can have copies of this questionnaire and the Asian Caucus can post this questionnaire on the AWORC website
- Success stories
- Sectoral or thematic reviews such as women and the economy, women's rights and others
For funding, Kay reported that the Japanese government has provided support and negotiations are ongoing with the Asian Development Bank and the UNDP for funding support.
The output of the meeting should be usable in terms of reflecting the region's concerns and guiding governments and the CSW on the implementation of the PFA. Some questions that need to be considered are:
- How do we measure progress?
- What new approaches can we use?
- How can states and the UN work with civil society?
As for the concern of NGOs about accreditation, Kay reported that ESCAP will have to be guided by the CSW agreements and the DAW guidelines. But even now, she sees that NGOs with ECOSOC status and those who were accredited in Beijing will have no problem.
Patricia Licuanan, speaking as head of South East Asia Watch (SEAWATCH), recalled the leading, critical and historical role that Asia Pacific played in the Beijing conference and asked that NGOs continue in this role in the review. She recalled that the Asia Pacific Working Group's role in the preparations and said that this remains a model for the Beijing+5 review. At the same time, she also stressed that the review is a different process and that expectations should be different.
"Asia Pacific was the first to organize the regional meeting. We set the norms for governmental and non-govermental dialogue. We came out with the first regional platform, with more analysis than others. It was ahead of its time, and most of Asian regional platform was incorporated into the global platform.
"That spirit should be carried on to the Beijing+5. The participatory nature of the work should continue," Licuanan said.
Talking then about SEAWatch, Licuanan clarified that SEAWatch is an informal or unstructured network of NGOs focused on monitoring the PFA. It provides technical resources that includes:
- innovative indicators for monitoring
- scanning: who's doing what
- sharing of information
SEAWatch has prepared a roadmap on trafficking and migration and has conducted workshops for developing indicators in health, violence against women and economy. In addition, it wants to produce a women's empowerment report that is similar to the Human Development Reports produced by UNDP. SEAWatch want to link up with the competent bodies that can work on these projects.
She also announced SEAWatch's plan to call for a regional meeting from 1-3 September either in Bangkok, Thailand or Nepal.
Lastly, Licuanan reiterated the big challange ahead of NGOs and asked NGOs to continue its tradition of playing a major role.
Open Forum
Q: What is the status of the September meeting? What about sub-regional processes?
Licuanan: It would be easirer to do sub-regional meetings ahead of the September regional meeting.
Q: How does NGO participation work at the regional ESCAP meeting?
Kay: In Jakarta, time was allocated to NGOs and we'll try to make the process as open as possible during the review.
Other questions, comments and suggestions:
- What about specific issues like trafficking and the girl child, Asia having the largest child population and it being an area where all sorts of abuses happen to the girl child. But they are invisible in the process. It is important to put the girl child in focus. How can we prioritize the issue?
- Asian Caucus should have a meeting to discuss the state of the Platform's implementation.
- Strategic alliances within the region are needed to move forward.
- Pacific representation is missing and is very much needed.
- The regional meetings of ESCAP and NGOs should reflect accountability and legitimacy.
- Central Asian hasto be represented in the regional process. Central Asia is in the border of Asia and Europe where there is a lot of violence taking place. Resolutions are passed but no action is being taken. In APW, we're not represented. We need to restore our networks and linkages because these helped us so much in the preparation for Beijing. Specific training will be useful.
- Where do women in local government belong? The process has no input from women in local government and these inouts are needed. Civil society is everybody and we need to involve all people - mayors, entrepreneurs, etc.
- The organizations were called upon to lobby their governments to ensure broad NGO participation. It was announced that at the Group of 77, the following countries have to be convinved about NGO participation: India, Pakistan, Cuba, Algeria, and Iraq.
- Lobbying for the review process will have a different focus as the lobbying that was done so effectively for the Beijing Platform for Action. this time, lobbying should not focus on putting new things on the PFA but on identifying gaps and pushing for implementation.
