The Gender Dimension of Human Rights: A Development Perspective

Five years after the Beijing conference, and a fortnight ahead of the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on “Women in 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century”, the World Bank has convened a conference bringing together high-level experts and representatives from the legal community, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), donor agencies, international organizations, and Academia, to take stock of progress achieved in protecting and promoting women's rights, to identify the remaining challenges, to review examples of Law and Gender programs introduced in developing countries, and to determine how the World Bank and other donors can improve their strategy of assistance in this area.

More specifically, the objectives of the conference were to enable participants to:
• Articulate the linkage between Gender, Law, and Development.
• Increase their awareness and understanding of the international and regional instruments that seek to promote and protect the Human Rights of Women.
• Review some of the long-established and emerging forms of discrimination and obstacles faced by women in securing or enforcing their rights in developing countries.
• Review examples of programs and initiatives designed, led or supported by Civil Society or International Financial InstituVI THE GENDER DIMENSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS tions in a number of developing countries (using the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region as example) to alleviate some of these discriminations, barriers, and obstacles in the legal and judicial systems.
• Identify “lessons learned” and “best practices” emerging from these experiences.
• Provide recommendations to donors and other international organizations on how to improve their strategy of assistance in this area.
• Explore innovative approaches for partnerships between Civil Society, Government, and the International Community to tackle the remaining challenges in Gender and Human Rights.

The one-day conference was attended by 80 participants including members of the legal and judicial professions, NGO representatives, staff of the World Bank and other international organizations.