Questions to think about?

Why can some countries make progress and others can’t ?
Do we concentrate too much on women in leadership and power positions and too little on disadvantaged, poor and disenfranchised women ?
Why isn’t progress towards equality quicker and more lasting?
Can efficiency and progress co-exist with justice and fairness?
More questions?
Sometimes asking the right questions is more important than producing a conclusion or recommendation…………
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Draft recommendations conclusions
Crises can produce creative solutions because they require people to think and act differently.

The Global Gender Gap reports are a useful tool for macro-monitoring. We would like to see added an index which will measure the degree to which women are economic ally independent of men.

One thing that the economic crisis and the failure of the global financial sector, makes clear is that it is not women who are the problem, but the failure of institutional mechanisms to guarantee equal treatment. The heart of the matter is making change at institutional level.

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It is absolutely paramount that the economic case for gender equality is made alongside and co-exists with the social justice case.

That the current economic crisis will impact more severely on women’s economic well-being is without question, but it will also affect gender relations and domestic economies in a variety of ways, some of which will be detrimental to society.

Some countries achieve better results because they are able to create alliances and effective networks between public institutions, NGOs, the private sector and government and legal bodies.

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Legal frameworks are a vital part of the infrastructure for gender equality. Where supra-national organisations exist, such as the EU and the OAU, these can enforce legal changes on reluctant national governments. But legal changes are not sufficient without cultural change, awareness and positive political will.

We are very concerned that some countries implementing severe public sector spending cuts will remove many of the non-governmental bodies which have done so much to promote justice and equality for women.

The road to equality is a broad avenue. Globally, it is important that women achieve positions of power and influence in politics, business, the arts and in health and public services, but real change cannot be secured without equal effort to improve the life chances of poor and disadvantaged women.

…and finally
Progress towards equality is being made, but the pace of change needs to be quicker. We need to accelerate the speed of change while we still have some control. The global threat from the impoverishment of women, needs to be avoided at all costs.

MOTIVATION