Civil Society Celebrates Creation of Gender Equality Entity After Four Years of Advocacy

Press Release from the GEAR Campaign, 30 June 2010. Contact: Charlotte Bunch, 732-642-5271 or cbunch@ig.org, Bani Dugal, 646-404-4210 or bdugal@bic.org, Rachel Harris, 301-535-9702 or rachel@wedo.org

The Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign celebrates the United Nations General Assembly resolution, agreed to on 30 June and to be formally adopted by the General Assembly on Friday, 2 July, to establish “UN Women”—the new gender equality entity at the UN.   This move has been sought by women’s organizations and other civil society organizations around the world since the UN established a System-Wide Coherence Panel for UN Reform in 2006. Charlotte Bunch of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University, a founding member of the GEAR Campaign, stated, “We have high expectations for this new agency to be a solid foundation for advancing the human rights of women as central to global policy efforts to reduce poverty and move toward greater realization of peace and democracy in the world.   The coalition of women’s groups and other social justice, human rights and development organizations that played a pivotal role in this effort will now turn its efforts toward ensuring that the new body has the human and financial resources necessary to succeed.”

Particularly notable in the resolution are the paragraphs regarding the importance of civil society participation in the new entity.  The body must have increased operational presence at the country level including engagement with women’s groups and other civil society organizations invested in gender equality and the empowerment of women.

The GEAR Campaign’s global, regional, and national networks will be contacting UN representatives at all levels to work with the transition process and the new Under Secretary-General, once appointed, to ensure they are connected with organizations on the ground ready to provide their expertise and support.

As the new entity is developed, GEAR supporters will continue to advocate for four major elements critical to its implementation:

• Meaningful, systematic and diverse civil society participation at all levels
• Strong, country-level operational capacity and universal coverage
• Ambitious funding with stable and predictable resources aimed at reaching $1 billion within a few years
• Strong leadership at the top with an Under Secretary-General who combines a global vision with gender equality expertise on the ground

“We know that this is only the beginning,” stated Rachel Harris of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO).  “We must continue to ensure that we are building a United Nations that really works for all women on the ground.  Implementation requires active engagement of all stakeholders to get the entity up and running successfully.”

Background

The GEAR Campaign is a network of over 300 women’s, human rights and social justice groups around the world that have been working for four years to gain UN Member State and UN Secretariat approval for creation of a larger more coherent coordinated UN agency that can advance further the UN’s   mandate of working for gender equality as a crucial component of development, human rights, humanitarian concerns, peace and security.

The new Gender Equality Entity to be headed by an Under-Secretary General, will consolidate the four existing UN bodies on women, increase operational capacity at the country level and have gain increased funding for work on women’s empowerment and advancement. The UN currently has four separate entities dedicated to women’s issues which will be combined in the new entity: the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), and the Office of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI).  Bringing these together and coordinating their work more with gender mainstreaming throughout the UN system should the UN and governments to deliver more effectively on their obligations and many commitments to advance gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights.

For more information please go to the GEAR Campaign website http://www.gearcampaign.org – or contact the GEAR Campaign at: gearcampaign@gmail.com

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After months of incessant publicity (all of which started through social media and then moved into press coverage), the Lebanese Laique Pride, a march for secularism, finally took place this morning with thousands of people participating! Numbers are estimated at two to three thousand, but I am very sure that at least 5,000 people started the march. At one point, they filled up the width of the road from on top of the Expo Beirut tunnel all the way down and around the Phoenicia hotel. Everyone came together for a very simple, yet daring and bold, initiative by 5 friends: Nasri Sayegh, Yalda Younes, Said Chaitou, Alexandre Paulikevitch, and Kinda Hassan. Often, the best organizing for social change starts with an idea that a small group of friends have.

Many news agencies have reported that a maximum of 2,000 participants marched in today’s event, although many of us are sure we had way more than 2,000. Here is a photo by @funkyozzi that shows only a part of the march – clearly in the thousands.

View @funkyozzi‘s blog post about the event.

A Unified Stand Against Sectarianism

The march was not longer than a couple of kilometers – starting on the Corniche of Ain El Mraisse all the way up to Masaref Street of Downtown Beirut. Secularist organizations, student groups, women’s organizations (including the awesome Nasawiya), and a majority of unaffiliated citizens marched together with slogans, chants, drumbeats, whistles, led by a truck with blasting music and secularist slogans:

• “Ta2 Ta2 Ta2ifiyyi.. La2 La2 3ilmaniyyi..” (Sec Sec Sectarianism.. No, No, Secularism)
• “Shou tayiftak? Ma khassak!” (What’s your religion/sect? It’s none of your business!)
• “Al-3ilmaniyyi hiyyil 7al” (Secularism is the solution)

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In a country so deeply divided along sectarian lines (in the personal status laws, in every aspect of the government, in people’s mindsets) which are manifested in civil wars and conflicts all the time, this march was totally awesome. Who would have thought so many people of all shapes and sizes would show up in such large numbers to support the idea of an anti-sectarian state in Lebanon? I had attended some of the organizational meetings of the event, where many people kept asking: what’s next? How is this going to help? What is it going to achieve? What is your political demand? How are we going to solve the issues posed by sectarianism, which seem like a total political deadlock? Etc. I personally think the organizers played it smart by saying that they weren’t trying to solve the entire sectarian crisis in Lebanon. They were, however, trying to bring people who believe in or work on secularism in Lebanon together on one day, for one march, to show first and foremost that there are many of us. The thousands who actually showed up stand for tens of thousands who were sitting at home. We also showed that we can put our differences in strategy and ideology aside for one day to come together and show solidarity for our cause. What happens afterward? We keep on fighting our battles, debating this system we live in, and maybe, perhaps, who knows, some of us might have been so inspired by the feeling and ambiance today that we step it up a notch in terms of working together and raising a stronger unified voice against the many ugly faces of sectarianism in Lebanon.

Social Media

Yalda Younes leading the march

Also, I want to give a big shout out to citizen journalism, which is alive and kicking in Beirut! It seemed like every other person had a photo or video camera, and I recognized many bloggers and tweeps taking part and snapping pictures. Of course there was the genius banner: “Sectarian #Epic #Fail” which only a handful of people understood but adored The number of participants on the ground was also a big boost to all of us slactivists who use Facebook and social media as our major tool of organizing. They are becoming more effective tools every day.

Things I liked most: We didn’t have any sectarian infiltrators, though that probably means nobody was taking us seriously =) A woman led the march. There were lots of baby strollers and dogs! Everybody seemed really happy. I got to carry my “3omro ma yirja3 al-tawezon il ta2ifi” (To Hell with sectarian balance) for the second time. Things I didn’t like: singing the friggin national anthem when we got close to Parliament. #Boo. I can’t stand national anthems. There was no mention of Palestinians and a lot of mention of “Lebanese” “Lebanesedom” “Lebanese-ness” which also makes me feel nauseous.

But yeah, awesome march all in all =) Here’s a pic of my favorite people at the march: the feminists and the tweeps (and me, the feminist tweep).

And I had to include this photo of the secularist doggie!

I just finished customizing the otherwise bland WordPress theme (Impulse from WPZoom.com) and SawtAlNiswa.com is looking good! Also check out my first post there, a photo I took in Hamra of a new slimming capsule for women called “Starvex.” True (and sad) story.

The very talented (and extremely sweet) Maya Zankoul gave us a workshop at Nasawiya on how to express our feelings & document our everyday life through illustration. Those of us (like me) who lack the talent and finesse can still use basic drawings to deliver messages. It is not the sophistication of the artwork but the ability to communicate a message powerfully that counts. During the workshop, Maya asked us to draw an incident that bugged us, so I drew a true story that happened to me & Ran last week. Yes, 3am darib 3ala Maya Zankoul Enjoy!

Some pics taken by the awesome @69mirs from @naeema‘s fantastic workshop on optimizing images for the web at Nasawiya happening live right now. Special thanks to @monajem and @smexbeirut for lending us the projector.

@naeema is very funny when giving workshops

participants learning how to optimize images

me laughing so hard at @naeema's workshop jokes

As you know, I am a little obsessed with WordPress and will be giving workshops and tutorials to friends & fellow activists. As part of building a Gender & IT program at @Nasawiya, the feminist collective, we are kicking off this Saturday, February 6 with a WordPress training. It’s free, you can learn more & sign up here.

Truth be told, the purpose of the training is to upgrade the nasawiya.org website to wordpress

The training is will take place at the IndyACT office in Mar Mikhael (call 01-447192 for directions) with a wireless connection for those of you who want to try out features during the workshop. To register, please email farah@nasawiya.org with a little bit about you. We have 15 places available and priority goes to young women and young activists of both or neither gender.