Homework from Copenhagen (1)

Homework from Copenhagen (1)

By Mely G. Tan

This is the first of a two-part article on the what, who and
how to address some of the issues discussed at the Copenhagen
summit.

JAKARTA (JP): Now that the pressure of the preparation
meetings, including three Prepcom meetings in New York and the
various regional meetings, are over and the hubbub of the
Copenhagen Summit has died down, the "real" work has to begin:
how to translate the strong language of the Declaration with the
10 Commitments and the 100 paragraph Program of Action into
actions that are operational and directly felt by the people
concerned.

These will be the indicators of whether all the activities
which went on for the last few years, involving great numbers of
people in the member countries of the United Nations; the 139
heads of state, of which seven were women, and the thousands of
participants; both the members of official delegations and of
NGOs present at the Summit (not to mention the estimated US$8
millions expended), were worth doing. No doubt it is on the
national and sub-national level that these activities should
occur, while the international level has more to do with
financial assistance, coordination and networking.

The documents in hand, dated March 10, 1995 and called the
Draft Declaration, includes the 10 Commitments and the Program of
Action, consisting of five chapters: 1) The enabling environment
2) Poverty eradication 3) Productive employment 4) Social
integration 5) Implementation and follow-up. The closing session
of the Summit occurred only in the early hours of Monday March 13
(due to the fact that the presentation of the statements of the
heads of states did not finish until about 1:00 am when the
documents were ratified.

As these documents are non-binding, while the language is
based on consensus requiring lengthy negotiation sessions lasting
until after midnight, there are those, especially among the NGOs
but also among official delegations, who were very critical and
skeptical of the final outcome of the Summit, gravely doubting
the effectiveness of the implementation and follow-up actions.

Nonetheless, the fact that the majority of the heads of state
of the UN member countries were present and adopted the document
is a clear indication of the recognition of the need for
concerted efforts on a global scale for the eradication of
poverty, the creation of productive employment and the promotion
of social integration. It is also a recognition of the direct
relationship between the persistence of poverty, high
unemployment and social disintegration. In turn this recognition
gives legitimation to all efforts attacking poverty, creating
jobs and building solidarity, on the national, regional and
international level.

As a matter of fact, if the Commitments and the Program of
Action are implemented faithfully and consistently this means a
total review of existing development policies and strategies in
many of the countries that participated in the Summit. How far
governments will go in the implementation will be tested in the
policies and programs generated in the months and years to come.

In this regard there is a provision in Commitment 10, which
refers to the role of the UN Economic and Social Council to
review and assess on the basis of national reports, while the
General Assembly is to hold a special session in the year 2000
for an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the
outcome of the Summit.

On the national level, Chapter 5 on Implementation and Follow-
up, especially on section A on national strategies, evaluation
and reviews refers to, among others, developing quantitative and
qualitative indicators for social development desegregated by
gender and the strengthening of implementation and monitoring
mechanisms, including arrangements for the participation of civil
society in policy making and implementation and collaboration
with international organizations. Section B on the Involvement of
Civil Society in the same chapter, refers to supporting academic
and research institutions, particularly in the developing
countries, in their contribution to social development programs,
and facilitating mechanisms for independent, detached, impartial
and objective monitoring of social progress.

Although there are many concerns we can address in discussing
these documents, I will limit myself to two areas, "the role of
women", and "the place of civil society". I have gone through the
documents and counted the number of times women are referred to
in the paragraphs and points in the paragraphs. In the Commitment
5 of the Draft Declaration, there are 14 points entirely devoted
to women. These refer to "achieving equality and equity between
women and men, and to recognizing and enhancing the participation
and leadership roles of women in political, civil, economic,
social and cultural life and in development". In all, the entire
Declaration refers to women in 31 points.

In the Program of Action, chapter 1) An enabling environment,
refers to women in 8 points; chapter 2) Eradication of poverty,
refers to women in 28 points, chapter 3) The expansion of
productive employment and the reduction of unemployment refers to
women in 20 points, chapter 4) Social Integration refers to women
in 17 points; chapter 5) Implementation and follow-up refers to
women in 3 points.

In all these references the emphasis is on gender equality and
equity, full involvement at all levels in decision-making and
implementation process, removing all legal impediments to
ownership of all means of production and property, rights of the
girl child, gender-sensitivity education, elimination of gender
discrimination, empowerment of women, women's unremunerated
productive work, feminization of poverty, single mothers, female-
headed and female-maintained households, access to traditionally
male-dominated occupations, elimination of violence against
women.

Chapter V on Implementation and follow-up, which only refers
to women in three points, states in the first "bullet" of the
first point that at all levels of implementation, the crucial and
essential requirements are: "The promotion and protection of all
human rights and fundamental freedoms, the support for democratic
institutions and the empowerment of women".

These, admittedly selective, references indicate clearly the
recognition of the crucial role of women in social development. I
have not been able to get information of the number of women in
the official delegations. There is a provisional list of
delegations, but this is not very reliable, as many changes have
occurred since the list was made. For example, the list of the
Indonesian delegation has names of people who were not present,
while there were people present whose names were not on the list.
Of the 34 people that I know were present, only seven were women.

If we look at the list of names of senior officials and ministers
and representatives of the UN and international agencies and of
NGOs, who made a statement during the "general exchange of views"
in the first five days of the Summit, based on the daily Journal,
I counted about 236 names, of whom about 63 or close to 1/4 were
women, while as mentioned earlier, of the 139 Heads of States
present, seven were women. I think we can each of us draw our
conclusion about the state of empowerment for women from these
figures.

Window: How far governments will go in the implementation will be
tested in the policies and programs generated in the months and
years to come.