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UNESCO FUTURE FORUM REPORT (9-11 September 2010/Athens/Greece)

“Gender Equality: the Missing Link? – Rethinking the Internationally Agreed

Development Goals Beyond 2015-”

The Athens session of the “Future Forums” series between 9th - 11th September by

UNESCO, the most powerful organization in the fields of science, culture and education of

the United Nations, the most valuable agency of the Global Governance concept, aimed to

deal once more with the Social Gender Equality within the framework of the Millennium

Development Goals and to determine the problematic areas despite the efforts in the last

decade. The objective of the forum, organized by the UNESCO’s National Committee in

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Greece, was to create a strategic road map to ensure urgent solutions to global problems

in social gender equality and thus to ease the process after 2015.

The Forum was opened by Irina Bokova; the first woman president of UNESCO at the

United Nations. It was a great pleasure for me to listen to a top woman executive and

during her speech I wished to have more Turkish woman executives to take similar

positions.

Irina Bokova

The Woman President stated that currently there are 795 million girls living in the rural

areas without schooling. She emphasized the importance of increasing the education level

of women and continued her speech by referring to the Millennium Development Goals.

Bokova said that it is inevitable that the uneducated woman will be out the business

markets throughout the world which increases and marginalizes the woman problems. She

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added that women should have more places in all decision mechanisms. Bokova also said

that it was pleasing that there were 500 female scientists working within UNESCO and

underlined that the objectives on the social gender equality could be achieved by

decreasing the social stereotypes for woman. UNESCO President ended her speech by

stating that the world peace can be substantially achieved by the protection of woman

rights whatever the culture, religion, education, ethnic origin and religion. After Ms. Irina

Bokova, Pavlos Geroulanos, Minister of Culture of Greece, made a speech.

Pavlos Geroulanos

Mr Geroulanos stated in his rather political speech that the majority of the people who lost

their jobs after the crisis were women. After the speech of Mr Geroulanos, the Welcome

speech to the guests were done by Ekaterini Papashristopolou Tzitzikosta who is the

President of Greek National Comittee of UNESCO.

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Ekaterini Papashristopolou Tzitzikosta

Other global leaders making a speech in the opening ceremony of the Forum were

Eleonora Mİtrofanova (Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO); Asha-Rose MIGIRO

(Vice-President of the United Nations); Tatjana Koke (Minister of Education and Science of

Lithuania); Bibiana Aido Almagro (Minister of Equality of Spain); Moushira Mahmoud

Khattab (Minister of Family and Population Affairs of Egypt); Emma Bonino (Head of

Senate of Italy); Carol Bellamy (Former Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO and

Head of Education for All Initiative in USA); Nafis Sadik (Former Head of the Executive

Board of the United Nations Population Fund and President’s Adviser of the United Nations

on HIV/AIDS in Asia) and Chen Zhili (Former State Ministry Undersecretary of China and

Head of Chinese Women Associations).

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Emma Bonino

Bibian Aido Almagro

Panel Process:

Following the opening ceremony on Thursday, the 9th of September, the panels were held

all day on Friday, the 10th of September and half a day on the following day. During the

panels, the speakers were chosen mostly among the United Nations’ social gender equality

experts, senior bureaucrats and NGO representatives.

1st Session:

The subject of the first panel held on Friday, the 10th of September, was determined as the

Strategic Role of Gender Equality for Development. The first speaker of this session was

Claudie Haignere, the former consultant of the Research and New Technologies Ministry and

Rector of the Science Faculty. Haignere stated that the technological development leaving its

mark on the 21st century had substantial contributions to the social gender equality and

women were more comfortable than before in access to information as well as to field use,

natural resources and health services. Claudia Haignere added that women with access to

information gained the ability of critical thinking since they started to find answers to

question “why”. She underlined that educated women are more persistent and brave than

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men when it comes to change. The scientist ended her speech by emphasizing that the social

gender equality can be achieved in a more effective and common fashion by the

participation of more women in the creation processes of bio-policies.

The second speaker was Rachel Mayanja, who works as the Advisor to the President of the

United Nations in the fields of social gender equality and woman development, started her

speech by reminding that the third of the Millennium Development Goals is related to the

social gender equality and empowerment of woman. Mayanja said that woman education is

important not only in terms of taking place in business markets but also in increasing the

participation skills of women and having desire for life. Rachel Mayanja stated that woman is

not a market element on her own but should be accepted as a main component in policies

like employment by referring to the “Social Gender Mainstream Strategy”. Mayanja

mentioned about the importance of 50% parity practice of the United Nations and of the

equal participation in decision mechanism adding that the social security problems of the

women working especially in informal sectors are still important. Mayanja explained that

combined works of all concerned institutions are essential and emphasized that it is urgent

to achieve the institutionalization on social gender equality. Mayanja underlined that the

political will and action are inevitable in the solution of the problem.

After that, Carmen Moreno, Executive Assistant of the Mexico-Latin America Woman

Commission started her speech stating that almost 30% of the women in the world are

subject to economic, psychological or physical harassment and argued that the reason

behind this is the fact that there are few women taking place in the decision processes.

Moreno, underlining the importance of the CEDAW process, stressed that it is wrong to

expect that the women will be protected by the decisions taken by men.

The third speaker of the panel, Salwa Baassiri, General Secretary of the National Women

Commission of Lebanon, said that just as it was necessary to deal with political, economic,

social and environmental factors together to ensure global justice and peace, the women

rights can only be achieved by ensuring their rights in these four areas. Baassiri reminded

that the main purpose in organizing this forum was to review the social gender equality

which was defined as the missing link in the chain of sustainable development. Salwa

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Baassiri emphasized that regional, national and global sensitivities should not be ignored

while determining the conceptual framework of the subject before the last speaker of the

panel, Samantha Hung, Asia Development Bank Gender-Development Specialist. Hung

stated that 16,1 billion dollars were allocated from the 2009 budget of the bank to ensure

social gender equality and continued her speech by telling that the strategic plans on the

matter is ready until 2020. Hung explained that the investments were determined within the

framework of regional cooperation, climate change, education and financial support

programmes and ended her speech by emphasizing the importance of the gender sensitive

budgeting.

II. ve III. Sessions:

The subject of the second panel held between 14:30 and 16:30 on Friday the 10th was

“Women: Victims of Violence, Architects of Peace?” The first speaker of the panel was

Saskia Sassen, Sociology Professor at the University of Columbia who is currently at London

Economy University for a scientific visit. In her speech, Sassen emphasized a topic where

serious discussions are also made in Turkey. According to Sassen’s approach, which can be

an answer to ongoing discussions between the conservatives and modernists on the

question whether priority should be given to the family or women, when more importance is

given to family, the idea of heroic man patriarchy becomes inevitable. Therefore, to ensure a

just patriarchy distribution between the spouses, woman rights should be emphasized and

family leading should be practiced equally between man and woman like all values.

Laura Thompson, Vice-president of the International Migration Organization, stated that a

majority of the refugees in the world are women and human trafficking and sex slavery

problem is similar to genocide of a certain gender and should be considered as a human

rights violation.

The third panellist Ghislaine Sathoud, a writer and member of the Intercultural Alliance

Organization, said that there is no place for women as all decision mechanisms are taken by

men, like stated by Emma BONINO, Head of the Italian Senate, and it would be naive to

expect that men would take decisions in favour of women.

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After Sathoud, Brita Fernandez Schmidt, Policy and Development Director of the

International Woman Organization, said that the intense requirement for women shelter is

an evidence that there is no equality between genders and added that women will always

have to seek shelter if they cannot be economically freed.

Dean Peacock, the only male panellist, is the Vice President of the Mal Leaders Organization

and Sonke Gender Justice Communication Group. Peacock emphasized the importance of

the women empowerment as a fixed component of the development policies and

underlined the need for urgent measures to increase the number of entrepreneur women.

The subject of the 3rd Session held between 17:00 and 18:30 hrs on Friday, September the

11th was determined as “Gender Equality and Environmental Challenges”. The first

panellist, Janest Kabeberi Macharia, Gender Policies Specialist of the United Nations

Environment Program, stated that the sustainable development goal cannot be achieved

anymore due to ever increasing climate change. Macharia emphasized that a strong link has

been established between environment and woman from 1973 to today within the

frameworks of the decisions taken throughout the Stockholm and Rio processes as well as

the seventh of the Millennium Development Goals. She also underlined the fact that the

environmental vulnerability reached irreparable dimensions. Macharia pointed out that

agricultural efficiency was reduced, water and food shortages increased due to reasons like

the decrease in biological variety, erosion and desertification adding that 75-250 million

people will suffer from draught in Africa in 2020 and this number will reach to 350-600

million as of 2050. Macharia emphasized the strong tie between crises and poverty which

affect the women most. Therefore, she argued, that poverty can be minimized by the use of

gender sensitive and integrating methods and that having more women in decision making

mechanisms will reduce the disconnection between the regional, national and global

commitments. Macharia mentioned about the negative effect caused by the difference in

the perception of womanhood depending on different religion, culture and education levels.

She added that it is important for ensuring social gender equality to reach a general

acceptance in this matter and to collect gender based data.

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Arzu Ozyol & Irene Dankelman1

Irene Dankelman said that the match between the 1st, 3rd and 7th goals was once more

emphasized during the reviews in the last September and that it was time to combine the

local realities with the global necessities.

I believe that one has serious lessons to learn from Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs, first lady of

Georgia, as well as founding president of the SOCO foundation, not only with regard to

environment and woman match but also with respect to modesty. Roelofs said that,

despite there were many powerful woman legends in Georgia, serious works on the social

gender equality in her country were done especially after 2007 and added that the legal

arrangements on domestic violence would be done after that. She mentioned that they,

together with Carla Bruni Sarkozy, the French first lady, started a work in New York to

reduce the death during partum or early postpartum period. Roelof ended her speech

telling some of her experiences.

1 Irene Dankelman is an academician at the Radbound University right now and also working a consultancy company called IRDANA. She

worked in the past as a technical consultant for UNIFEM in the fields of environment, gender and sustainable development.

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Arzu Ozyol& Nikitas Kaklamani2

IV. Session:

The topic of the 4th session held between 10:00 and 13:00 on Saturday, September the 11th

was determined as “The Role of UNESCO as a Promoter of Change through Education,

Science, Culture, Communication and Information”. The first speaker of the 4th and the last

session was Chen Zhili, Former State Undersecretary of China and President of the National

Women Federation in China. She stated that the year 2010, the thirtieth anniversary of

CEDAW and the fifteenth anniversary of Beijing, was a key year for the woman movement

and mentioned about the importance of women in achieving development and peace. Zhili

stated that social gender equality was accepted as the basic element of sustainable

development since the 1995 Beijing process and emphasized that the gender perspective

should be included in all policies due to gender mainstream strategy in order to achieve a

real accomplishment. Zhili reminded that women make the 70% of the poor population of

the world, two third of the illiterate 759 million and 80% of the 20 million refugees and she

underlined that the 50% of girls had to leave school in early ages. Zhili stated that social

gender equality has been substantially achieved despite all these and 45.4 % of the women

2 The Mayor of Athens; Nikitas Kaklamani, has shown a great hospitality on the reception held on 10th September evening which has

positive results about networking activities.

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population are employed as of 2008. She added that 29 million women entrepreneurs make

the 25% of all entrepreneurs in China and a huge state budget is available for woman

entrepreneurs. Zhili also said 30% critical threshold practice is observed which is important

not only for increasing the status of women but also for strengthening the democracy and

for increasing the awareness on the matter. Zhili ended her speech quoting from Simone de

Beavoir: “One is not born a woman but rather becomes a woman”. Aminata Traore, Head of

Gender, Human Rights and Culture Committee of the United Nations Population

Organization, said that the fact that the United Nations had to create a new woman

organization is an evidence of the existence of many problems of woman like education,

unemployment, health and participation in decision mechanism. Aminata Traore, the

former Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Mali was the last speaker of the panel and made

speech that could leave its mark on the panel. Traore started her speech by saying the

poverty increases together with the increase of the number of unemployed people and

added that women employment is a luxury in her country. Traore said that both women and

men are unemployed in her country and there are men who leave their wives delivering

stillbirth to death as they have no money. Traore complained to Zhili, the Chinese delegate,

by saying that they could start talking about social gender equality if developed countries

like China pay fully for the raw material and human source obtained from her country.

Traore asked all international organizations like UNESCO to act on this matter and

emphasized that it is a human task to deal with the global violence that her country is

subject to before dealing with domestic violence.

Views of the Delegate:

I believe that it would be appropriate to say that the forum started at Pnyka, the

archaeological section of Acropolis, on Thursday, September the 9th, had apart from its

meaningful content an opening ceremony that was an audio visual ceremony. The opening

ceremony was as meaningful as the whole of the forum as it was held on the soil where the

inclusive democracy concept was born making the foundation of the Global Governance

concept and in the field where the first people’s assembly took place. The opening of the

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Forum was a real visual feast as it was accompanied by a magnificent lighting show in the

middle of the archaeological site. Greek Television Philharmonic Orchestra delivered a

superb concert after the opening speeches before the Greek tenor Mario Fragoulis took the

stage as surprise of the night.

Following the years long efforts of UNIFEM on social gender equality, that the field that we

fight for has great importance for humanity is pointed by the fact that UNIFEM established

cooperation with UN Global Compact and developed strategies for providing women with

more place in the business world, that UN Women organization was established and finally

that the UNESCO included social gender equality among its priorities.

During the Forum in Athens, UNESCO emphasized that the reason for not achieving world

peace despite regional, national and global efforts is the fact that there is a missing link in

the chain of peace, that is the social gender equality. As known, Beijing Action Plan

contributed substantially to the social gender equality. In the process following Beijing, some

mechanisms were put into practice not only to free women socially but also to include them

in the business life.

Despite the fact that the framework of the forum, that took place in Athens between

September the 9th and 11th and where urgent mobility is called from the concerned people

and organizations, was the determined with respect to Action Plan of the 1995 Beijing

Declaration and Fourth World Women Conference, Millennium Development Goals and

Education for Everyone Goals and the discussions in the Millennium Development Goals

Summit held in New York in September 2010, I believe that this Forum attributed great

importance to the duo of Women and Peace.

I enjoy the pleasure of meeting very important people at the forum and expanding my

knowledge, experience and communication network. However, I need to point out that

there are names that cannot forget easily like Ekaterini Papashristopolou Tzitzikosta (that is

dear Ketty), humble president of the Unesco National Committee, UNESCO President Ms.

Irina Bokova, 32 years old Bibiana Aido Almagro, the Minister of Equality of Spain, Ms. Emma

Bonino, the President of the Italian Senate, my colleague researcher Irene Dankelman,

Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs, dear wife of the President of Georgia and her two young sons, Dr.

Verena Metze Mangold, Vice-President of Unesco Germany, Prof. Paroula Naskou Perraki

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and Prof Anastasia Sotiriadou, lecturers of the University of Salonika and Ms Gülser Corat,

UNESCO Paris Gender Equality Section Head, the Turkish woman who made proud with

affection and excitement. Besides I would like to offer my thanks to Ms. Şehnaz Yılmaz, the

Chairperson of the İzmir Club of the Business and Professional Women Association, who

conduced me toward being a part of this process

Arzu Özyol

President of the Business and Professional Women Club, Ankara –turkey

The Vice President of the Turkish Federation of the Women Associations

Faydalı Linkler:

UN Resolution A/64/L.56

& 49: Strengthening the institutional arrangements for support of gender equality and the

empowerment of women.

ECOSOC Ministerial Declaration - 2010 High Level Segment

Implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to gender

equality and empowerment of women.

UN Chronicle: Empowering Women - Progress or not? UN

United Nations in a united world

Volume XLVII - Number 1 - 2010

Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action UN

The Fourth World Conference on Women (September 1995)

Priority Gender Equality - UNESCO Action Plan 2008-2013 UNESCO