GLOBALIZE THIS! WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN DEVELOPMENT

AWID, The Association for Women's Rights in Development

What is AWID's Globalize This! Women's Rights in Development Campaign?

An introduction to the Globalize This! Women's Rights in Development Campaign
was launched at the 9th International AWID Forum in Guadalajara, Mexico,
October 3-6, 2002.

GLOBALIZE THIS!
WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN DEVELOPMENT

Envision a world without poverty, without violence, without discrimination; a
world where everyone's needs are met and their human rights are protected; a
world where women's rights are both a means and an end of development.

Envision it? now GLOBALIZE IT!

The road to real equality is long and bumpy, requiring major changes in
attitudes, laws, policies, economic systems, social and political structures,
and core values. Currently, the processes of globalization represent the
most significant challenge on the road to gender equality. We are poised,
therefore, to use our collective creativity and energies to bring our vision
of equality to life by 're-inventing globalization'.

Background:
Throughout modern history, the women's movement has been a social force to be
reckoned with. Women have risen up in the face of adversity time and time
again, have lead visionary social movements that have changed the course of
human history, have held things together when times have been tough, and have
presented alternative visions when those in power were "off track". Today,
our challenge is the negative forces of globalization - the elite,
corporations, political leaders and international institutions that are using
international trade and investment, religious and cultural practices, market
mechanisms, technological innovations, and global power structures to promote
their own short-term material gains over the long-term needs of communities
and the environment as a whole.

The women's movement embraces values and visions that are shared by
communities all over the world. Using our collective solidarity and creative
vision, feminists from the Global South, North and Eastern Europe can
together bring forth an alternative "globalized world". We need to use the
avenues opened up by globalization - the communications technologies,
international institutions and governance structures, and flows of capital,
goods and people across borders - to advance equality, empowerment and the
well-being of people throughout the world.

Those currently setting the agenda are globalizing corporate control, short-
term material gains, the patenting of life forms, natural resource
exploitation, over-reliance on women's unpaid and informal labour, the
privatization of global commons, economic systems that put the maximum
profits into their own hands, U.S. unilateralism, and militarization. We can
globalize alternatives.

About the AWID's Campaign for Women's Rights and Development:

AWID's mission is to connect, inform, and mobilize people and organizations
committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women's
human rights. Although AWID has made great strives in connecting and
informing its membership the "Globalize This" campaign was created in
recognition of the importance for AWID to find new ways of mobilizing and
supporting activism that works to ensure women?s rights in development. AWID
has made strives, when creating this campaign, to move away from simply
naming negative impacts of globalization towards envisioning what the world
would look like if women's rights in development were guaranteed. In essence
we are reappropriating the current notion of globalization for an alternative
vision: "a world without poverty, without violence, without discrimination; a
world where everyone's needs are met and their human rights are protected; a
world where women's rights are both a means and an end of development" and
hoping that this vision will spread with the same speed, power, and authority
as conventional messages of 'globalization'.

The points that are included on the campaign are symbolic of visible and
obtainable results that AWID can work towards in the three years leading up
to the next AWID Forum. The platform, as it stands currently, is not a final
draft but is changing and growing with input from our membership. From
feedback already obtained at the Forum we will be adding a point on HIV/AIDS.
We hope that this campaign will be used as a focal point for real and
obtainable change so that at AWID's 10th International Forum we will be able
to report substantial changes that have been made in ensuring women's rights
in development. The action points established by the campaign are as follows:

AWID's Campaign for Women's Rights & Development:

* We call on the development community to shift a large portion of the
finances from microcredit projects into women's co-operatives and unions, and
literacy, health and education programs.

* We call on all governments to implement the Beijing Platform for
Action.

* We call on International Financial Institutions to measure all
macroeconomic policies against their ability to reduce women's time burdens,
to ensure universal access to health care and education, and to guarantee
equal access to productive resources.

* We call on feminists, government representatives, and social and
religious leaders to condemn unilateralism and vocally oppose the advent of a
permanent "war on terror".

* We call on the United Nations to revoke the Catholic Church's "non-
member state permanent observer" status.

* We call on corporations and research institutions to use technology
responsibly. A research project or technological innovation should only be
pursued and disseminated if the expected benefits exceed the total potential
risks.

* We call on social, economic and environmental justice movements to
make space for feminist leadership and put gender equality squarely on their
agendas.

* Women's organizing must foster diversity and create spaces for those
who are especially experiencing the negative impacts of globalization.

To read the campaign platform in full please visit the AWID Forum web site
http://www.awid.org/index.pl?section=forum. We welcome your input or feedback
on the campaign. Please send your comments to [email protected]. Thank-you.

Globalize This!

Source:
AWID Resource Net
Friday File, Issue 98
Friday, October 18, 2002
http://www.awid.org