Response to the Secretary-General's Report, In Larger Freedom:
Integrating Gender Equality into National-level Priorities for September Summit
April 2005

The NGO Working Group on Women Peace and Security (NGOWG) welcomes the report of the Secretary-General “In Larger Freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all” as a key contribution to the preparations for the World Leaders’ Summit in September 2005 (September Summit). We share the view of the Secretary-General that development, peace and human rights are inextricably linked and that their realization should be underpinned by the rule of law. Furthermore, we support his call for a new security consensus based on the recognition that all threats are interconnected and that “in today’s world no state, however powerful, can protect itself on its own.”

While the NGOWG agrees with many of the recommendations proposed by the Secretary-General, we are deeply concerned by the lack of gender analysis and gender perspectives in the report. Gender equality is mentioned only as an aspect of development and is absent from the sections on security, human rights and institutional reform. Furthermore, only one recommendation (5j) incorporates women-specific and gender-specific language.
Stressing that the incorporation of a gender perspective is essential to achieving sustainable progress at the September Summit, the NGOWG urges Member States to consider the following points in the negotiations of its outcome document:

1. Gender Equality: Gender equality should be a guiding principle for Member States’ commitments to actions agreed upon at the September Summit. As articulated in the Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW and SC Resolution 1325, development, equality and peace cannot be achieved without the equal participation of women and full integration of gender perspectives. The outcome document of the September Summit should reaffirm the commitments to women and girls, such as overcoming violence against women, increasing girls’ access to primary education, ensuring women’s equal participation in decision-making and ensuring access to reproductive rights and services, with time-bound targets and benchmarks for action.

2. Gender Mainstreaming: Gender mainstreaming in the UN system, as mandated in ECOSOC resolutions 1997/2 and 2004/4, can benefit the effectiveness and results-based work of the UN system. The structural changes to be agreed to in September must take into account the inter-governmental commitment to gender mainstreaming by ensuring that the structural changes support and augment UN entities’ work and financial and human resources within the UN to promote gender equality. In this context, the low percentage of women in high level posts within the UN should be addressed as a matter of priority.

3. Civil Society: The work of the UN cannot be effective without meaningful engagement from civil society organizations and strong partnerships between Member States and civil society. The NGOWG is concerned about the absence of language in the Secretary-General’s report on the importance of Member State and UN partnerships with civil society. It is crucial that during this historic gathering in September a clear process is set out for discussion and action on the Cardoso report on UN-Civil Society Relations. Additionally, civil society representatives should participate in and contribute to the deliberations of the Summit.

4. Development: The MDGs do not represent the entire development agenda as other processes are also important. The outcome of the September Summit should ensure that clear links are made between achieving MDGs and implementing the outcomes of the UN global conferences of the 1990s, including those on women. Moreover, the nexus between conflict prevention and sustainable development should be reinforced by the political and financial commitments made at the Summit.

5. Responsibility to Protect: Governments must acknowledge that the responsibility to protect includes a responsibility to prevent conflicts and to rebuild after conflicts, through diplomacy, negotiation, and technical and economic assistance. The SC must embrace the principle of “do no harm” when intervening, particularly with regard to sexual abuse of women and children. The responsibility to protect must include scrutiny of military interventions to ensure that ulterior motives are minimized and states with obvious political and economic interests do not participate. Governments must ensure that the UN has the capacity to respond quickly and decisively if intervention is authorized. The goal must be a more consistent, timely, effective, ethical, and depoliticized Security Council response to situations where large numbers of civilians, particularly women and girls, are under direct and systematic attack or threat of attack.

6. Disarmament: Decisions on the disarmament of all weapons, including small arms and light weapons and nuclear weapons, should be carried out in the framework of human security. In light of this and consistent with the provisions of SC Resolution 1325, gender analysis of all situations of armed conflict should be performed as an integral part of all DDR and small arms intervention planning, implementation and monitoring. Further, the participation of women’s groups should be ensured in disarmament initiatives and should be supported in formal peace and security reform processes.

7. Peacebuilding Commission: The proposed Peacebuilding Commission should address all stages of complex conflict situations from conflict prevention to post-conflict peacebuilding. Its mandate would be incomplete without a strong commitment to conflict prevention and monitoring potential conflicts. The membership of the Commission must involve civil society organizations, and in particular, grassroots groups, including women’s groups, in addressing specific crises. Such a Commission should be adequately staffed, funded and have clear reporting lines.

8. Human Rights: We agree with the need to strengthen human rights mechanisms within the UN in order to enable them to deal with all human rights, in all countries and at all times. We further emphasize that the entire UN reform process must be based on mainstreaming human rights. In reforming the Human Rights commission, we must ensure that the valuable aspects such as relationships with civil society and special procedures are preserved. We welcome proposals to strengthen the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and to enlarge the role of the High Commissioner in the work of the Security Council and the proposed Peacebuilding Commission.

9. Security Council: The reform of the Security Council should not only focus on enlargement issues, but also on methods of work and procedure in order to achieve a more democratic, transparent and effective Council. In this regard, we would like to support the Cardoso report’s recommendations to allow for broader and increased relations with civil society.

Finally, we call on Member States to seize this historic opportunity and take decisive actions at the September Summit to overcome poverty, inequality, stop the spread of deadly weapons and protect and promote human rights for all.

For a printer-friendly version of this document on NGOWG letterhead, please email Cora True-Frost, Coordinator, at: coratruefrost@peacewomen.org.