IDRC marks International Women’s Day 2009: Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo

What is the UN Commission on the Status of Women?

The CSW is a commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was established in 1946 and is dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women. Every year, representatives of member states gather at the United Nations headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards, and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.

Suscripción al Boletín de IDRC

2009-03

Celebrated around the world, International Women’s Day, March 8, is a time to reflect on women’s advances toward equality and look ahead to challenges that remain.

To mark this day, Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) organized panel discussions at the 53rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), and at its head office in Ottawa.

Building on the review theme of the 53rd CSW, which focused on women’s participation in decision-making at all levels, one panel addressed whether decentralization policies have improved women’s political representation and access to public services.

“Our future, Canada’s and the world’s, depends on helping women to participate fully [in decision-making bodies]… If they succeed, we all will succeed,” said the Hon. Helena Guergis, Canada’s Minister of State for the Status of Women who opened the panels in both New York and Ottawa.

Co-hosted by the Permanent Missions of Canada and Mexico to the United Nations and the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, the discussion involved IDRC-supported researchers from India, Paraguay, and South Africa.

Seema Kulkarni from the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management presented findings from research on the impact of water management decentralization on gender justice in two Indian states.

Her team found that while women’s presence in the public sphere increased generally, real decision-making power was still often hindered by caste, marital status, and age biases. “Democratic institutions can only create space, but democratic practices come with a new politics emerging both within the family and outside,” said Kulkarni.

Read the policy recommendations which were agreed at the IDRC-led international conference on Decentralization, Local Power and Women`s Rights, held in Mexico City in November 2008.

Women’s burden of care

This year’s CSW focused on the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including the provision of care in the context of HIV/AIDS. At the NGO Forum, IDRC partners from Southern Africa and Canada discussed research on how health systems, nurses, and communities deal with HIV/AIDS when women often lack the power to make and follow through on prevention and treatment decisions – a situation panelist Neil Andersson of CIETAfrica described as “choice disability.” The panel was co-hosted with the International Women’s Tribune Centre.

“HIV/AIDS cannot be studied strictly as a medical or public health issue. Because it is a sexually transmitted disease and since women are caregivers in most societies, gender roles and power relations must be considered,” said IDRC’s Christina Zarowsky.

Panelists Nancy Edwards, scientific director at the Institute of Population and Public Health, and Uta Lehmann of the University of the Western Cape in South Africa described how nurses in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are expected to implement HIV/AIDS programming and shoulder the burden of HIV and AIDS care, but have limited opportunities to influence policy.

According to Edwards, “The disempowering burden of care may be exacerbated as HIV/AIDS programs are scaled up.”

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IDRC marks International Women’s Day 2009

IDRC Photo

2009-03

Women’s burden of care