By Daniele Rosche, OXFAM Novib 2010

Also this year, thousands of women’s rights and anti-poverty activists gathered in New York for the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting. This March, the number of delegates was higher than usual because of the review of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) that celebrated its 15th anniversary this year. A reason to celebrate? “Perhaps”, “maybe a little” and “why” some colleagues answered when I asked them why they came to New York. The expectations definitely varied.

At the same time, it was fairly simple not to have high expectations on that meeting. Anyone who attended the CSW over the last few years with the objective to participate in the political process knows this system flawed and malfunctioned. The spirit that existed during the regional Beijing+15 meeting could not be retained in New York. The fact that governments had agreed in advance that they would pre-negotiate a text that was based on the Beijing+10 outcome document, even before the actual meeting started, ensured my hopes would not flare up high. Quite early on, it became clear that the political part of the 54th CSW would be closed, nontransparent and very likely to have no impact. The fact that the BPfA is a non-binding agreement without targets and timetables has left its mark on the political process.

Oxfam Novib and Oxfam International have argued that despite its imperfections, the BPfA is a deal that was closed. And “afspraak is afspraak” as they say in Dutch.
Leaving such optimism aside, we decided to focus our participation on the political process around the establishment of a new UN women’s rights entity. The creation of the new entity, which many also refer to as new UN women’s agency (UNWA), was agreed on by governments in September of 2009. While this agreement was historic, it left out critical issues such as mandate, country level presence and operational capacity, collaboration with civil society and funding. The CSW was a very important political moment and platform to push forward with the establishment of the agency but also to address the concerns about its proposed structure and mandate.

In January this year, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon released a report with proposals on how to structure the new UNWA. By and large this report lacks vision and ambition. In the European and global GEAR (Gender Equality Architecture Reform) campaign we have strong doubts as to whether these proposals are good enough to change the status quo on women’s rights. But also ensuring that governments would move fast and formally “launch” the agency this year was critical and the CSW was the right place to advocate for that.

On Monday morning 1st of March we launched The New Times for Women, a spoof/fake newspaper that presented the news we wanted to read at the opening of CSW- one week away from International Women’s Day. The newspaper was a huge success with NGO colleagues, governments and the media. From there on the GEAR campaign continued and organized a nice action to hand the newspaper to Ban Ki-Moon. GEAR became the talk of the CSW and was present in the UN hallways a lot more than in previous years. Also the Oxfam Novib side event which gave the platform to partners from Pan-Africa/Kenya, Jordan and Macedonia to present what women want from the new UN women’s agency, was a big success. After a long day about 150 guests stayed and discussed until 8.30. Luckily we had arranged refreshments and the energy boost was a welcome treat. More lobbying and engagement around GEAR followed over the course of the CSW meeting. Unfortunately, governments could not agree to include reference to GEAR in the outcome document. That would have been something new.

Also the CSW 54 resolution on GEAR, which by the way should not be mixed up with the “real” GA resolution of September, became only a repetition of what was agreed in previous years. Regardless of these particular outcomes, the vibe and the energy clearly came back to the GEAR process. To me, the best outcome definitely was a feeling that the new UN women’s agency is on its way to become a household name. Still mostly among women’s rights advocates and surely the rest will follow in no time. Especially if we manage to build an organization that is able to work with lasting impact, especially at country level, and in that way, change the status quo on women’s rights.

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