Innlegg 6.11 om "Informal Consultation on Strategies for the Promotion of Gender Equality", Holmen Fjordhotell

Informal Consultation on

Strategies for the Promotion of Gender Equality

Opening address by

Minister of International Development, Ms. Hilde F. Johnson

Holmen Fjordhotell, 6 November 2002

(Check against delivery)

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome all of you to this informal consultation on strategies for the promotion of gender equality. I am happy to see that so many of experts from the UN agencies and development banks have been able to attend. A special welcome also to the experts on gender issues from some of the donor countries with a particularly strong commitment to gender equality - the Nordic countries and Utstein partners.

This is the fourth time that we are organizing a gathering like this one. Strategies for the promotion of gender equality was chosen as the topic for discussion because we feel that it is now time to take stock of our efforts. We have all gained a lot of experience in this field, and will benefit from sharing it.

We are interested in learning more about your experience. What strategies are you pursuing and how do they work? In particular, does the strategy of gender mainstreaming work? How well is the strategy understood? How effective is it? What have we achieved? The purpose of this seminar is to gain further insight and to bring the issue forward.

This year marks the 50 ^th> anniversary of official Norwegian development cooperation. Poverty eradication, this century’s most important task and greatest challenge, has been our overarching objective throughout these fifty years. Today 1.2 billion people are living in extreme poverty and are denied their basic rights. Poverty is not gender neutral, as women and girls usually suffer its consequences even more than men.

Norwegian development cooperation has mirrored Norwegian society in general in its focus on equal rights and opportunities for women and men in all areas of society. Several strategies for promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women have been implemented thus far. The present strategy was adopted after the Fourth World Conference in Beijing, and will be in effect until 2005.

For several years, the Norwegian development budget included a special budget item for efforts to empower and mobilize women. This is no longer the case. Rather than sidelining these issues in a separate budget item, we have made the promotion of gender equality an integral component of all our development cooperation activities.

The Government is currently in the process of engendering the national budget. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is making an effort to engender the entire development cooperation budget. This will help us implement our policies in a more coherent and systematic manner.

This integrated approach does not mean that special activities and programmes targeted at women or men are no longer required. On the contrary, such efforts are an essential precondition for sustainable development.

In recent years there has been a growing international awareness of the relevance of gender equality to poverty eradication. This is also reflected in the UN Millennium Declaration. It emphasizes that the promotion of gender equality - and the empowerment of women - are effective ways of combating poverty, hunger and disease, and of encouraging sustainable development.

This past March, the Norwegian Government adopted an Action Plan for Combating Poverty in the South towards 2015. The plan is an overall strategy for Norway’s contribution towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It is an ambitious and dynamic plan. It goes without saying that the gender equality approach is part and parcel of our action plan.

The international community has made substantial commitments to gender equality. Political commitments were made in Beijing in 1995 with the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action. Commitments to intensifying the efforts to implement the plan were made at the UN Special Session in 2000. Many countries, including most development countries, have also made a legal commitment to eliminating all discrimination against women by ratifying CEDAW. We are determined to assist partner countries in meeting their obligations in this area.

Much has been achieved in terms of formal as well as real rights for women, but much remains to be done. Discrimination is still the order of the day. One recent example of the difficulties in acknowledging equal rights between women and men - and one that I regret very much - is from Johannesburg. It was not possible to gain consensus at the World Summit on Sustainable Development on giving women the same rights to own land as men. And this is 2002!

The multilateral dimension is very important in Norwegian development cooperation. Through the UN, all the countries of the world have agreed on goals and action plans for promoting development as well as gender equality. The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals was a breakthrough. Halving world poverty by 2015 is a formidable challenge, and one that requires a multilateral approach. The UN agencies, the World Bank and the regional development banks are assisting poor countries in their own efforts to achieve the goals. Norway therefore provides much of its assistance through these organizations.

Norway plays an active role within international development organizations. In addition to channelling funds for development assistance through these institutions, we are pushing for change through active participation on the boards and by way of financial support. We have provided financial support to organizations for the establishment of gender units, gender experts within the organizations and projects for the empowerment of women.

Unfortunately, it has been difficult to gain acceptance and support for including these activities in the general budgets. We have, however, seen progress in this regard, at least in some organizations.

Lofty strategies and policies are not enough, and they are by no means a guarantee of success. The main challenge is, off course, the practical implementation of these strategies and policies. Gender mainstreaming is a political process, and structural changes in societies do not take place overnight. Having said this, development is by its very nature a time-consuming business. In fact it is never ending. Our job is to see to it that genuine equal rights and opportunities for women and men at all levels of society become an integral part of the developmental process sooner rather than later.

I hope the discussions at this seminar will inspire you in your important work.

I wish you a successful seminar.

Thank you.