Introduction to NCWC

INTRODUCTION: The National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC) is an accredited NGO (Non Government Organization) with the United Nations. The NCWC has a long history of working internationally. NCWC has been a member of the International Council of Women (ICW) since 1897, and has consultative status at the United Nations, Category II. Each year we send a delegation to the meetings of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York in March.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

NGO Parallel Events

The deadline for submission of Parallel Events for the NGO CSW Forum (27 February to 9 March 2012) has been extended. The new deadline is Friday, 2 December 2011. Consult the website: www.ngocsw.org

Friday, November 18, 2011

So much of the Global South is Rural too

Global South Needs New Path of Development


GENEVA, Nov 17 (IPS) - The convergence of leading countries from the global South - China, India, Brazil and South Africa, among others - to assist the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere constitutes a new "dynamic" in the emerging global economic partnerships, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

In a report released on Thursday on the poorest countries - often referred to as the least-developed countries (LDCs) - UNCTAD calls for "a new path of development" to break from the "structural maladjustment" policies that led to "boom and bust cycles and growth collapses."

There are currently 48 poorest countries with low per capita income of less than a dollar a day. About two-thirds of LDCs are located in Africa, and all indicators suggest that they are the worst affected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s market-oriented policies.

"The neo-liberal policies (fostered by the IMF and World Bank) devastated these countries," says Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD’s secretary general. "These policies turned most sub-Saharan African countries from net food producing countries into net food importing countries."

Team leader for the report, Zeljka Kozul-Wright, said that the LDCs are the victims of "structural maladjustment" policies followed over the last 40 years, which resulted in "boom-bust cycles and growth collapses."

"LDCs suffered unstoppable marginalisation, and what we are saying is that if the current trends persist, the LDCs would become major locusts for extreme poverty in the global economy sooner rather than later," cautions Charles Gore, UNCTAD’s chief for the African division, LDCs and special programmes.

"The only way to reverse this trend is to create a new type of catalytic developmental state in the poorest countries with an adequate policy framework that would strive for structural transformation," Gore told IPS.

"South-South cooperation opens up more opportunities and policy space needed to build such a catalytic developmental state," he argued, suggesting that the economic and technical assistance offered by China, Brazil, and India comes without any conditionalities.

He dismissed suggestions that LDCs are merely exporting oil and other vital raw materials to China. Though the report cautions about "commodity-dependence", it also says that there are positive examples where manufactured exports from LDCs to other developing countries increased by 18 percent per annum during the last decade.

Faced with worsening international trading conditions and haemorrhaging economic crisis in the centres of leading industrialised countries, LDCs face major challenges. The only plausible path to stay afloat in these difficult times and sustain their economic growth in the short and medium term is by enhancing their partnership with the Southern champions of economic development, the report says. (END/2011)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Call for representation on the Candian Delegation

Minister Rona Ambrose (Minister for Status of Women), is calling for nominations for non-governmental organization representatives to be part of the official Canadian delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, from February 27 to March 9, 2012.

If you are interested in submitting a name or names, please forward a curriculum vitae (outlining relevant experience and expertise) and covering letter describing how the individual meets each of the nomination criteria. Individuals nominating someone other than themselves should inform candidates of the nomination. Please note that all submissions should include a description of the candidates’ expertise with regards to the themes to be discussed, their plan to disseminate and liaise with other women’s and non-governmental organizations after their attendance at the meeting, two letters of support from two non-governmental organizations and should confirm the availability of candidates to attend the entire session of the UNCSW February 27 to March 9, 2012.

Nominations must be received no later than 5:00 p.m., Friday December 9, 2012. They should be sent to the attention of: Meredith Quaile, Policy Directorate, Status of Women Canada, 123 Slater Street, 11th floor, Ottawa, ON, K1P 1H9, or by email: UNCSW-CCFNU@swc-cfc.gc.ca or by fax: (613) 947-0530. Any questions regarding the process should also be directed to Meredith Quaile (613-996-8374).

The final approval of NGO delegate(s) will be made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, upon recommendation of the Minister of State (Status of Women).

Registration now open!

Registration is now open for credited NGOs to attend the 56th meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations Headquarters in New York from Monday, 27 February to Friday, 9 March 2012.

In accordance with its multi-year programme of work (ECOSOC resolution 2009/15), the 2012 priority theme of the Commission on the Status of Women is "The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges".


The Commission will also evaluate progress in the implementation of the agreed conclusions from its fifty-second session on "Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women". 

If you are a member of NCWC and are interested in attending, please let us know ncwc@magma.ca.  

Rural Women in Africa

CLIMATE CHANGE
A Threat to Food Security in Africa's River Basins


Busani Bafana


PRETORIA, South Africa, Nov 15 (IPS) - While Africa has successfully avoided conflict over shared water courses, it will need greater diplomacy to keep the peace as new research warns that climate change will have an effect on food productivity.
"Climate change introduces a new element of uncertainty precisely when governments and donors are starting to have more open discussions about sharing water resources and to consider long-term investments in boosting food production," Alain Vidal, director of the CGIAR’s Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF) told more than 300 delegates attending the Third International Forum on Water and Food being held in Pretoria, South Africa from Nov. 11 to 18. GCIAR unites agricultural research organisations with the donors.

"To prevent this uncertainty from undermining key agreements and commitments, researchers must build a reliable basis for decisions, which takes into account the variable impacts of climate change on river basins."

Scientists at the global water forum added that climate change will increase water pressure on the already stressed Limpopo, Nile and Volta River Basins on which more than 300 million people depend.

Vidal said new insights on the effect of climate change on river basins calls for a rethink on assumptions about water availability. However, investment in research to support far-sighted water policies will give decision makers the information they need to address challenges introduced by climate change that could otherwise impede agreements and investments in food security, he said.

As part of a five-year global research project scientists from more than eight major research institutions around the world examined the potential effect higher temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns, caused by climate change, had on river basins around the world in 2050. CPWF scientists say some unsettling scenarios have emerged for parts of Africa, particularly in the Limpopo Basin, in Southern Africa, which is home to 14 million people.

Using data averages from climate models by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CPWF scientists found that rising temperatures and declining rainfall in the Limpopo Basin over the next few decades would affect the already marginal environment, depressing food production while intensifying poverty.

"We need to ask whether current agriculture development strategies in the Limpopo Basin, which are predicated on current levels of water availability, are in fact realistic for a climate future that may present new challenges and different opportunities," said Simon Cook, a scientist with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture and head of CPWF’s Basin Focal Projects.

"In some parts of the Limpopo Basin even widespread adoption of innovations like drip irrigation may not be enough to overcome the negative effects of climate change on water availability," Cook added. "But in other parts, investments in rain-fed agriculture such as rainwater harvesting, zai pits (deep planting pits) and small reservoirs might be better placed."

The key, said Cook, was data for informed decision making.

Rainwater management is viewed in Africa as the key to improving both crop and livestock farming. Innovative ways to make productive use of rainwater are also being touted as a new "climate smart" approach to agriculture. For example, small reservoirs can be used to store water during dry periods or to help control flooding.

"These decentralised approaches to farming with rainwater are inexpensive, highly adaptable and provide immediate options for farmers to be their own water managers," said Lindiwe Sibanda, CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network.

"Enhancing farmer’s adaptive capacity to respond to current challenges is smart even without climate change, but it is an absolute imperative now that we see what the future hold," she added.

The CPWF research has highlighted the important role of effective water management to ensure food production stays abreast of population growth, even in times of climate uncertainty.

Experts are arguing that the strong link between climate change and food security should give agriculture a boost in the global climate talks at the forthcoming 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Durban, South Africa.

"But water for food and agriculture and the impact of climate change on global food security is barely a blip on the radar for the negotiators meeting in Durban later this month," added Sibanda.

She said that the first step towards climate security was ensuring farmers and the world’s poor would be able to feed themselves under rapid environmental change that puts the local and global food system at risk.

Findings to be presented at the global forum indicate that climate change could also introduce uncertainties into the water politics of the Nile Basin. The CPWF analysis shows that higher temperatures — temperatures are expected to rise by two to five degrees Celsius by 2050 — could result in increased water evaporation and could "reduce the water balance of the upper Blue Nile Basin."

(END/2011)

Rural Women in Peru

CLIMATE CHANGE-PERU
Rural Women Share Their Trials and Wisdom


Mariela Jara

CUZCO, Peru, Nov 15 (IPS) - "This year the freeze killed my crops, our small livestock died, and now I can't even sleep because I'm worried sick thinking about how to put food on my family's table, since I'm a widow," said Rosaura Huatay, an indigenous farmer in Peru's northern Andes highlands. 

Huatay and four other campesinas or peasant women from different regions of Peru gave their personal accounts at the Rural Women Against Climate Change Public Hearing, held Thursday Nov. 10 in this city 1,105 km southwest of Lima.

The forum, organised by the Centro Flora Tristán women's rights group, formed part of the Gender and Climate Justice Tribunals organised by the Feminist Task Force and Global Action Against Poverty (GCAP) since October in 15 developing countries.

The aim of the tribunals is to gather and compile the testimony and suggestions of women in the developing South and channel them to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held Nov. 28-Dec. 10 in Durban, South Africa.

Some 200 people, including local authorities, farmers and representatives of civil society, were moved by the accounts of the women who spoke at the hearing held in an auditorium of the state government of the south-central Andean province of Cuzco.

The five peasant women were Huatay, who is from a village in the northern province of Cajamarca; Sonilda Atencio from the southeastern highlands province of Puno; María Ibárcena of the southern Andean province of Arequipa; Bertha Berecho of the coastal province of Piura in the north; and Hilara Yanque of Cuzco.

The five indigenous or mixed-race women talked about the impact of climate change on their lives, economic situation, family relations, and physical and mental health.

They exemplify the reality of poverty and neglect experienced by tens of thousands of families in a country that has enjoyed years of high economic growth that has not been felt by everyone – overall, more than 30 percent of Peru's 29 million people continue to live in poverty, and the rate is as high as 70 percent in some rural highland areas.

The rural poor receive less than one percent of the state budget, although they produce seven of every 10 tons of food consumed in the country.

"In my community, women still wear 'polleras' (traditional native skirts), we know nothing about shoes, we use our 'ojotas' (rubber sandals), we cook with firewood and we sleep on animal skins on the floor," Atencio, a 35-year-old mother of three, told IPS.

"We have been hunting, farming and grazing our animals since we were just girls," she said.


In her rural community, Pacha Ccaccapi, located 3,810 metres above sea level, crop freezes have gotten worse and worse over the last few decades, as a result of climate change. Temperatures drop to 33 degrees below zero, destroying crops and pasture alike, and leading to the death of livestock by hunger.

"We work hard in the countryside, and all it takes is one night of intense cold for us to see nothing but dried-up plants the next day. We feel like pachamama (mother earth) is upset because we are destroying nature; the balance has been broken, and we have to fix things," Atencio said.

Her story was similar to that of the other campesinas, even though each one of them came from very different regions in one of the most megadiverse countries in the world.

Peru is also highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change, a global phenomenon caused by the actions of the countries of the industrialised North, it was emphasised in the hearing.

Although the abrupt climate swings affect the population at large, poor rural women are the most exposed to the risks, which have further undermined their economic, social and cultural rights.

Ibárcena was unable to harvest any of the fruit or flowers she planted this year, because they were destroyed in the freezes, and the worry and despair over the loans she owes to the bank have thrust her into a state of depression. 




Huatay lost her potato, corn and bean crops due to drought, which forced her children to move to other parts of the country to find work. Meanwhile, she stayed in the village, raising her grandchildren, and she is constantly overworked and stressed out, she commented to IPS.

For Yanque, uncertainty about the future has caused her anxiety since the Lucre river flooded and swept away her house and belongings.

And Berecho has not yet got over the loss of her crops and seeds to flooding caused by frequent torrential rains.

When the women shared their pain and frustration with the auditorium, their voices would break momentarily. But when they talked about their suggestions and ideas, the strength with which they have withstood the climate injustice that has made their difficult lives even tougher shone out.

Their resilience is enormous, despite the fact that they live in times when everything seems to have turned upside down and knowledge handed down over generations can no longer be relied on because of climate change.

For example, the seasons of the year, which determine agricultural and water cycles, are no longer predictable.

"We don't want to be given money; we are asking for training support to get ahead using our own skills and tools; for our areas to be reforested to create microclimates that buffer against the freezes; for the biodiversity to be preserved; and for organic farming to be fomented," said Atencio.

Blanca Fernández, head of the Centro Flora Tristán's rural development programme, told IPS that the state is not doing much to fight climate change. She said that while there are some initiatives in different regions, there is no national policy, let alone a gender perspective.

"The government has committed itself to include a focus on climate change and sustainable development in all of its development policies; we as civil society will be closely watching to make sure women and their organisations are included in the policies," she said.

Tania Villafuerte, a provincial government authority in Cuzco, acknowledged that the state is still "blind, deaf and dumb" regarding climate change and that it has yet to face the challenge of "bringing policies down to earth, and rooting them in people's lives."

"This phenomenon does not affect everyone alike, it's not neutral," she said. "Women have to be protagonists in the process of taking care of natural resources because they have the ancestral knowledge that has made it possible to care for and preserve biodiversity, such as in the case of native seeds."

Skills training among women farmers for the efficient use of water, improvement of soil and organic farming were key proposals presented by the five women who gave their testimony at the hearing. Another was the establishment of farm insurance that also covers women.

They also called for afforestation efforts in highlands areas, to generate microclimates to attenuate the freezes, as well as sustained policies to promote the conversation of biodiversity.

Rosa Montalvo, who commented on the women's proposals at the hearing, said they were all viable, if gender policies complete with budgets are established, "taking into account the different impacts of climate change on men and women."

"The ancestral knowledge of women farmers should also be recognised and strengthened with modern technologies, and enforcement of the laws and equal opportunity plans should be ensured at all levels of the state," the gender expert said. (END/2011)

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

NGO Consultation Day

This is always an excellent day - good to hear the issues reviewed from different perspectives, and to meet many amazing women.

NGO Consultation Day will be held on Sunday, 26 February from 9:00 am to 5:15 pm at the Salvation Army (120 West 14th Street, New York, NY). The purpose of NGO Consultation Day is to prepare participants for the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meetings (27 February to 9 March). The draft program for the NGO Consultation Day includes a Welcome by Michele Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women (invited), a keynote address by the NGO/CSW/NY Woman of Distinction awardee, dialogue between the UN, governments and NGOs, as well as advocacy training and orientation for new participants to the CSW.


The fee for the day (includes lunch) is $80 per person. Space is very limited and registration is accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. The working language is English.


The NGO Consultation Day registration deadline is 25 November 2011.