
Forum of Women’s NGOs of Kyrgyzstan
Forum of Women’s NGOs of Kyrgyzstan
Dear friends, the New Year is coming soon! We have had many important moments in the past year. I would like to share notes from the Summit on Development Effectiveness and Partnerships, where issues that are important to us were discussed. Since we work for the advancement of women, we were interested in issues related to the needs and interests of women. One of the questions was about a global partnership for the advancement of women. But first, let me share some other notes from the Summit. What was important? Agreement on the need to support the development of civil society and create an enabling environment for civil society organizations! The whole world is moving towards sustainable development, and how we move, how we cooperate, matters. This question of how to develop was the key to the Summit. Long ago, back in 2011 in Busan, the countries agreed on the principles of partnership. And at this Summit, these principles were reaffirmed as the key principles of cooperation. For us, this means that local priorities are central to the global partnership, and that on the path to sustainable development, attention will be paid to such things as accountability, results orientation, and inclusiveness or involvement of all stakeholders in solving the socio-economic issues of the country’s development. Another change adopted at the Summit was an achievement, the emphasis on the localization of sustainable development. The Summit on Effective Development Cooperation was held from 12 to 14 December 2022 in Geneva. The Summit was intended to draw attention to how closer cooperation builds trust and changes the way we work together. On 13 December, the Summit agenda included the following sessions: Gender Equality and Efficiency, Parliamentarians and Effective Development Cooperation: The Challenge of Oversight, Local Governments and Decentralized Budget Support, Comprehensive Approaches to Efficient Sustainable Development Financing, Engaging the Private Sector, Improving the Effectiveness of South-South Cooperation and Tripartite Collaboration, Effective multilateral support at the country level, Effective partnerships to improve country-level outcomes: a new global partnership, monitoring to stimulate dialogue and action, and other sessions. Notes from the session “Localizing Development Cooperation, Leaving No One Behind”. At the session, the participants shared their experience in promoting local and inclusive development. Emphasis was placed on the fact that development cooperation at the local level can bring benefits without leaving anyone behind. During the session, various organizations and donors shared their experience, plans and recommendations. Unfortunately, at the session, the exchange of experience of disparate players was noticeable, no attention was paid to the issues of the model of interaction at the national and local levels, there were no representatives of local municipal authorities among the speakers. It is the question of how to cooperate at the local level that is important. An important issue is to agree on who does what and how, as well as who is responsible for what and when.
Notes from the session “Localizing Development Cooperation, Leaving No One Behind”. At the session, the participants shared their experience in promoting local and inclusive development. Emphasis was placed on the fact that development cooperation at the local level can bring benefits without leaving anyone behind. During the session, various organizations and donors shared their experience, plans and recommendations. Unfortunately, at the session, the exchange of experience of disparate players was noticeable, no attention was paid to the issues of the model of interaction at the national and local levels, there were no representatives of local municipal authorities among the speakers. It is the question of how to cooperate at the local level that is important. An important issue is to agree on who does what and how, as well as who is responsible for what and when. For women’s organizations, we would like to highlight the session dedicated to gender equality and development effectiveness. Women’s NGO Forum of Kyrgyzstan, on behalf of the Global Network of CSOs for Development Effectiveness (DEED) The Feminist Group (FG) was one of the organizers of this session at the Summit. FEED FG has prepared its position paper, which can be read on the OECD website and on the FEED website https://csopartnership.org/2022/10/cpde-feminist-group-shares-demands-on-gender-equality-women-empowerment-indicator /.
Women’s rights and gender equality are recognized throughout the world as the foundation of sustainable development, yet gender equality remains the most serious human rights issue. The World Economic Forum estimates that at the current rate of progress, women will not achieve pay or leadership parity with men for at least another 135.6 years. (UN Women, 2021). The women’s movement around the world has welcomed the global standards set out in 1995 in the Beijing Platform for Action (PPAP). But after this milestone, we continue to face challenges such as insufficient funding to ensure effective implementation of the political commitments made by governments. Governments have failed to back up their commitments with adequate funding and accountability mechanisms to ensure the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality. The women’s movement has struggled to survive in the current adverse environment and to put women’s rights and gender equality on the sustainable development agenda. Countries must urgently undertake institutional reforms to accommodate the needs of women’s rights and gender equality agendas. It is essential to ensure accountability at the local and national levels. The participation of women’s rights groups in reforming systems and laws remains quite low in many countries around the world. We demanded at the Summit to integrate a gender perspective into public financial management and financial management in country budgeting to ensure gender equality and women’s empowerment, apply transparency and accountability in the use of public funds, so that no official considers funding women’s rights as an additional burden; and ensure free access to information by the public. Feminist demands to donor countries and governments mainly concerned solving the problem of low investment in women’s rights, increasing accountability for gender budgeting and SDG indicator 5c1, using the results of GPEDC monitoring for further activities on women’s rights. This matters today as the next round of monitoring begins in 2023. The feminist group CPDE participates in monitoring the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) through the global CSO platform. The monitoring has indicator 8 “Countries have transparent systems in place to track public spending on gender equality and women’s empowerment.” The inclusion of the indicator on women and gender equality was the result of many years of intense struggle by the international women’s movement to increase the commitment and accountability of development partners to women’s rights and gender equality.