CSW 2011: Key Messages

· Gender equality is not only an important right on its own, but is a pathway to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. As stated in the outcome document of the 2010 MDG Summit: “Investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and sustained economic growth.” Investing in women and girls improves the lives of individual women and girls, men and boys, and helps families, communities and nations as well.

· Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education (MDG3) will help achieve other development goals, such as reducing hunger and improving child and maternal health. Educated women are more likely to seek medical care during pregnancy, ensure their children are immunized, and be better informed about their children’s nutritional requirements. As a result, their infants and children have higher survival rates and tend to be healthier and better nourished. Educated girls are also more productive at home, better paid in the workplace, and more able to participate in social, economic and political decision-making.

· Women’s economic empowerment is central to achieving the MDGs. While more women than ever before are participating in the workforce, almost two thirds of women in the developing world work in vulnerable jobs in the informal economy with no labour rights or social protection. Economic empowerment requires: providing economic opportunity, including access to finance, training and technology; strengthening women’s legal status and rights; and ensuring the inclusion and effective participation of women in decision-making processes in all spheres.

· The global economic crisis presents an opportunity to rebuild the economy in a way that recognizes the different impacts of the crisis on women and men as well as the social underpinnings, including gender, of economic development. By considering gender as a variable of economic analysis and a determinant of economic recovery, governments can pave the way for sustainable, gender-equitable development.

· Women and men are affected by climate change differently and their specific needs and roles as well as their rights to participate in decision making should be considered in responses to climate change. Women must have equal access to and control over resources being mobilized and must have the ability to integrate their needs into the structuring of climate change finance mechanisms. Women are not just victims of climate change but are also powerful agents of change, particularly given their leadership in areas such as natural resource management and agriculture.

· Increasing the participation of women in all forms of decision-making, at all levels from Parliaments to government, private enterprise and civil society, is an important right on its own and is essential to achieving the MDGs. Women decision makers often pay more attention to ensuring that the needs of women and girls, as well as communities at large, are met. Women must have a voice in decision-making at local levels as well as meaningful participation in delivering public services, both of which support progress towards meeting the MDGs.

· Despite the disproportionate impact of conflict on women, women are rarely included in post-conflict decision-making, planning and budgeting processes. To ensure gender equality and sustainable peace, women must play a critical role in conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery. Adequate resources must be allocated to incorporate gender issues in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction.

· To be effective, HIV responses must advance human rights and promote gender equality. Responses need to take into account how women and girls contract HIV and are affected by it; emphasize the importance of women’s and girl’s participation in and access to prevention, treatment, care and support; and address the legal, social and economic inequalities that increase women's and girls’ risks and vulnerabilities to HIV.

· Violence against women is a clear violation of women’s human rights and impedes progress in eradicating poverty, combating HIV/AIDS and sustaining peace and security. Laws to protect women’s rights must be included and enforced within legal frameworks. Women must be empowered to claim their rights and hold their governments accountable. Rape and sexual violence are not collateral damage; they are weapons of war. Perpetrators of these war crimes must be held accountable and victims/survivors must be provided with social and support services.