10 years ago Boutros Boutros Ghali was UN Secretary General and Gertrude Mongella was Secretary General of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. A year earlier in Jakarta at the UN-ESCAP High Level Meeting she had encouraged women’s NGOs who had diligently poured over the draft Platform for Action and worked with our governments to input  a Pacific perspective into the 12 critical areas of concern, to “speak out on our issues” and not get caught up in the daunting language and processes of the United Nations.

Today I sat in the NGO gallery of the United Nations overlooking the General Assembly, the venue of the 49^th session of the Commission of the Status of Women, mostly commonly known as Beijing Plus 10 until next Friday (11 March).

“Keep up the good fight and steer them (governments) in the right direction,” said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, at the opening of this high level meeting today, as he welcomed not only the government delegations but also a large contingent of women’s NGOs and their development partners who have come to New York to contribute to this hallmark session of the CSW, an important high level consultation in the lead up to the upcoming MDGs plus five.

Annan reminded the opening of the CSW in a speech that clearly offered unwavering support for gender equality.

Gender equality is everyone’s responsibility, he said. It is an everyday concern, for all sectors of society. Gender equality is a key objective of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals. He told the assembly that the full implementation of the BPfA could be addressed by using the 7 priorities of the MDGs as guide points to shape national programmes, to make a real change to address the clear gaps in the implementation of the BPfA to date including:

-         access to primary and secondary school education in order to reduce young women’s vulnerability, in particular, to HIV/AIDS

-         guaranteeing sexual and reproductive health rights

-         incorporating women’s perspectives in infrastructure development, especially to reduce the time burden of women and girls in collecting water and fuel for their families

-         guaranteeing property and inheritance rights to ensure women’s access to land and housing security, which will also further reduce female vulnerability to HIV/AIDS

-         eliminating gender inequality in employment, an important means to ensuring women’s protection from the entrapment of traffickers

-         increasing women’s formal representation in decision making structures such as parliaments and local governments, as a pre requisite to good governance

-         ensuring zero tolerance to violence  

“There are no grounds for tolerance of violence against women and no tolerance for excuses,” said Annan.

In the spirit of taking stock of commitments to the women of the world, yesterday, feminist activist, Peggy Antrobus, provided an important reminder to women and delegates of the Commonwealth member countries here in New York for the CSW.

She reminded us that there is unfinished business as far as making good on commitments to gender equality, and she sounded an important reminder to the global women’s movement not to become complacent of the gains we have made, and to also be mindful of the rising tide of conservatism which is also infiltrating the movement:

“What does it mean that women hold important position and yet women face and die of violence; when education numbers do not equate with job numbers and when governments do not provide the funds to implement their policy commitments?”

Antrobus challenged the meeting to consider how we could transfer action to ensure a world where women’s equality is the first step, to look beyond the litany of achievements and recognise the gaps between reality and rhetoric.

And yet, Carolyn Hannan of the UN Division of the Advancement of Women, told the meeting of Commonwealth member countries yesterday (27 February) that the media is a critical partner not only in achieving the goals of the BPfA but also the new Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality (2005 – 2015) – what sort of media is she talking about ? Clearly not just the mainstream or commercial media which no longer provide adequate (and free) spaces for women to articulate an undiluted vision for gender equality? Clearly she means all forms of media, including women’s independent and community media. Several Pacific Island government delegates agree, so one is hoping for re-affirmation of the Pacific Governments support for women’s independent and community media at the High Level Meeting in Bangkok (September 2004).

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* Women’s International Network of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters