empowerment

• BIODIVERSITY: ‘Governments will not show political will unless people on the ground put enough pressure’

  CIVICUS speaks with Gadir Lavadenz, global coordinator of the Convention on Biological Diversity Alliance (CBD Alliance), about the ongoing process to draft a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework with the full participation of affected communities and wider civil society.

  The CBD Alliance is a network of civil society organisations (CSOs) with a common interest in the Convention on Biological Diversity. It works to increase public understanding of relevant issues, enhance cooperation among organisations wishing to have a positive influence in the CBD and bridge the gap between those who participate in CBD sessions and those involved in biodiversity-related work on the ground, while respecting the independence and autonomy of Indigenous peoples, a key stakeholder.

  What is the CBD Alliance, what does it do and how did it develop?

  The origins of the CBD Alliance, about two decades ago, were organic – it came naturally as those participating in the CBD process saw the need to act together and amplify the voices of civil society in the negotiations. Since the beginning, the CBD Alliance’s role was not to speak on behalf of people, but rather to support all advocacy efforts being undertaken autonomously in the best way possible.

  Despite our limitations, it is very clear to us that the less privileged groups require specific support. Also, while our network is diverse, we respect the role and have fluent coordination with the other major groups involved in the process, particularly the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB), the Global Youth Biodiversity Network and the Women Caucus.

  The CBD Alliance is a broad community: in includes both Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and CSOs that support them closely. We fully respect each of these groups’ governance structures and decision-making processes and decisions. We maintain fluent communications and coordination with the IIFB, which represents the biggest group of IPLCs engaged with the CBD. We support their statements during official meetings, we support the participation of IPLCs at international meetings whenever possible and we amplify all their publications and campaigns.

  Why is there a need for a new Global Biodiversity Framework? 

  Historically, the implementation of the CBD focused around its first objective, the conservation of biological diversity, and comparatively little attention was put on its second and third objectives, which are the sustainable use of the components of biological diversity, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources. This is one of the reasons why the CBD has not been able to deliver the results required. The past decade saw lack of political will from parties to the CBD leading to failure in achieving the Aichi targets, and there is abundant literature demonstrating how the destruction of biodiversity continues rampant.

  A new framework should be a unique opportunity to correct past mistakes. The CBD covers a broad range of issues but has failed to address the root causes of biodiversity loss, and its hyper attention to targets such as the one on protected areas, focusing on quantity rather than quality, has hidden huge inconsistencies in our approach to biodiversity loss.

  For instance, the Forest Peoples Programme, a member of the CBD Alliance, reported that global funding of biodiversity has grown significantly over the past decade, and is now estimated at between US$78 billion and US$147 billion per year. However, it is greatly outweighed by public subsidies and broader financial flows that drive biodiversity loss, which are estimated at between US$500 billion and several trillion dollars per year.

  Furthermore, while the contributions of Indigenous peoples and local communities are widely recognised as critically important for protecting biodiversity, they are often negatively impacted on by biodiversity finance, and receive little direct support for their efforts.

  Another CBD Alliance member, the Third World Network, reported that in 2019, 50 of the world’s largest banks underwrote more than US$2.6 trillion in industries known to be the drivers of biodiversity loss. A recent study concluded that ‘the financial sector is bankrolling the mass extinction crisis, while undermining human rights and indigenous sovereignty’.

  According to the Global Forest Coalition, also a member of the CBD Alliance, climate finance and subsidised renewable energy generation are a form of direct subsidy that often harms forests while failing to reduce emissions. The most prominent example of this is the Drax power station in the UK, which receives UK£2 million (approx. US$2.8 million) per day to produce highly polluting electricity from wood clear-felled from highly biodiverse wetland forests in the south-eastern USA, among other places. Other examples include the Global Environment Facility’s subsidy to iron and steel companies to produce charcoal from eucalyptus plantations in Brazil, and numerous national and European Union-level subsidies available to the pulp and paper industry in Portugal.

  Recently, in an event organised by the CBD Secretariat, several so-called world leaders pledged great amounts of money for biodiversity. However, countries from the global north have failed to fulfil their international commitments in relation to new and additional funds. What they pledge for nature is mixed with all sorts of schemes that do not address the real causes of biodiversity loss. And the amounts pledged to protect biodiversity are clearly outweighed by all the money invested in destroying biodiversity.

  In addition to these troubling contradictions and inconsistencies, powerful groups and developed nations constantly try to avoid their responsibilities by all means. We see the push to incorporate terms such as nature-based solutions in the CBD simply as another trick from big polluters to offset their obligations and a new form of corporate land-grabbing and greenwashing.

  Why isn’t this all over the mainstream media? This is what happens when ‘big’ players focus all their attention on certain policies and activities, such as the increase in protected areas. Protected areas are not bad, but they are far from being a real solution to the much-needed change in our production and consumption patterns. The narrative around the CBD must shift towards the root causes of biodiversity loss, which are more structural and related to justice and equity. Just like climate change is no longer a purely environmental problem, we need to see the big picture of the destruction of biodiversity that relates to the rights of IPLCs, peasants, women, future generations and nature herself. We need to put an end to the commodification of nature, since nature does not belong to us, or to those few privileged among us. Nature does not need fancy schemes and lots of money to thrive, it needs us to stop destroying it. This narrative should make us all desire and truly work for profound individual and collective change.

   

  What change should the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework bring?

  The CBD is a legally binding agreement and, if fully implemented, has great potential. The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework should be the instrument to implement the legal obligations of the parties to the CBD through accountability mechanisms that sanction any lack of action. It is also an opportunity to adopt a rights-based approach that puts the rights of IPLCs, women and peasants, and the rights of nature, at the centre of the debate, connecting the CBD to the international human rights architecture. 

  Several reports have shown that violations of human rights have been committed for the sake of protected areas. While tackling the biodiversity and climate change crisis is both possible and unavoidable, various interests are pushing for this connection to be centred around ‘nature-based solutions’, a cover for schemes such as offsets, which do not benefit nature but the status quo and do not bring real solutions to our structural problems.

  Another great challenge is the fact that the implementation of environmental norms is usually in the hands of environmental ministries, which tend to be completely powerless in comparison to others that are the actual drivers of biodiversity loss. This needs to change in relation to the new Global Biodiversity Framework.

   

  The UN Biodiversity Conference has been twice postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What challenges has this created?

  The first challenge we faced was that global north countries pushed strongly to continue with the negotiations through virtual means without any consideration of the variety of difficulties experienced not only by their counterparts in the global south but also by civil society. The CBD Alliance expressed concerns around the inequalities and inequities of virtual negotiations on several occasions and supported the proposal by global south parties to postpone the negotiations. It was only when African and some Latin American parties expressed deep concerns about this situation that rich nations backed down and online meetings were maintained so the conversations could continue, but it was established that decisions would only be adopted in face-to-face meetings.

  How can international civil society best support the work you are doing around the post-2000 Global Biodiversity Framework?

  Some of our goals are to ensure that the post-2020 Global Diversity Framework centres around a strong statement of principles, such as equity and common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR); a mechanism for dealing with noncompliance, including penalties, which should be well embedded under the principle of CBDR; a target focused on human rights and environmental defenders and on women, as they are the ones who are defending biodiversity in the real world; and a target on outlawing major disturbances of nature.

  Once the Framework is approved, our mission will be to coordinate with regions, networks and organisations that have a direct connection with those working on the ground and on the frontlines. This coordination should include massive and intense dissemination of the Framework, but with a focus on how it can empower people in their resistance, struggles and projects.

  Even if faced with legally binding obligations, governments will not show political will unless people on the ground put enough pressure on them. Such pressure cannot happen without meaningful empowerment and information of the decisions adopted at the international level.

  Get in touch with CBD Alliance through itswebsite,Facebook page andTwitter account. 

• CSW66: ‘Advocacy for policy change takes time and a long-term commitment’

  CIVICUS speaks about women’s rights and the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) with Helen McEachern, CEO of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women.

  Established in 2008, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women works with women entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries. It has already supported more than 200,000 women to start, grow and sustain successful micro, small and medium-sized businesses in over 100 countries.

  What does the Cherie Blair Foundation do, and what challenges have you faced?

  The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women works with women entrepreneurs in low and middle-income countries. We are committed to eliminating the global gender gap in entrepreneurship and creating a future where women entrepreneurs thrive.

  As a UK-based charity working in international development and women’s economic empowerment, we are very concerned about the decision the UK government made in November 2020 to cut the UK overseas aid budget from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of GDP. The impact of this decision on women and girls has been devastating. We welcome the commitment late last year to restore the women and girls’ development budget to what it was before the aid cut. The government should swiftly act on this commitment and restore the overseas aid budget, which will save lives and protect the rights of women and girls. We are also very much looking forward to the new gender development strategy due out from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office later in 2022.

  What issues did you try to bring into the CSW agenda?

  It is estimated that it will take 268 years until women have equality in economic participation and much remains to be done to address economic gender injustices in women’s entrepreneurship, and more holistically when it comes to women’s economic empowerment. In real terms, this statistic means millions of women and girls are exposed to exploitation and are not able to increase the education and health outcomes of their children or enjoy their rights and the choices that come with financial independence.

  The review theme of this year’s CSW was ‘Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Changing World of Work’. Our current advocacy efforts are focused on tackling gender stereotypes that affect women’s entrepreneurship. Gender stereotypes undermine women’s economic rights in multiple ways: they affect their aspirations, sources of support, opportunities, perceptions and access to resources such as finance and markets, and impact on the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem.

  We wanted to use the 66th session of the CSW to recognise how gender stereotypes undermine women’s rights and embed strong calls for action in the session’s Agreed Conclusions.

  Based on detailed survey responses from 221 women entrepreneurs across 42 low and middle-income countries, our recent report, ‘Gender Stereotypes and their Impact on Women Entrepreneurs’, reveals that gender stereotypes are part of the social background for women entrepreneurs, with 96 per cent of respondents saying they had directly experienced them. Overall, 70 per cent of respondents said that gender stereotypes have negatively affected their work as entrepreneurs. Nearly a quarter – 23 per cent – also experienced gender stereotypes or discriminatory remarks while trying to access finance for their business, and more than 60 per cent said they believe that gender stereotypes impact on their business growth and affect how seriously they are taken as business owners.

  We also raised concerns about the challenges women face around entrepreneurship in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. For women entrepreneurs, the pandemic has meant further reduced incomes, temporary and permanent business closures, dismissal of employees, missed business opportunities and reduced access to often already limited finance and capital. 

  Women-owned firms face additional barriers to accessing government support, and are more likely to close, with many citing difficulties with managing additional unpaid care work. Women-owned enterprises are overrepresented in sectors most vulnerable to the detrimental impacts of COVID-19 – such as retail, hospitality, tourism, services and the textile industry. That’s why we wanted to advocate to ensure that a strong focus on women’s economic empowerment and gender-transformational post-pandemic recovery was embedded in the CSW session’s final conclusions.

  We also highlighted the unpaid care work that disproportionately affects women. Before the pandemic, women already spent about three times as many hours on unpaid domestic work and care work as men. The pandemic has increased the unpaid workloads – both for women and men – but it is women who are still doing the lion’s share. This impacts on the everyday lives of women in multiple ways, including by undermining women’s economic rights and opportunities, for instance, to access and pursue education, formal employment, entrepreneurship and leadership positions.

  These themes are critical when we consider the enormous gender economic gap.

  To what degree were your expectations regarding CSW met?

  This was the first time the Foundation undertook advocacy at CSW, so it was definitely a learning experience for us – but a very positive one.

  Our objective was to ensure that women’s entrepreneurship and gender stereotypes that affect women’s entrepreneurship and economic participation were raised, and that in addition to addressing gender justice, CSW’s final elaborations included commitments on these issues.

  We decided to do this by organising a side event and by sharing our advocacy calls with permanent missions by email and through social media. I am very grateful for the collaboration and support from the excellent colleagues at the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN, who hosted a side event with us. The side event was co-sponsored by the permanent missions of the Philippines and Sweden. We found many missions and colleagues receptive to this topic and willing to get involved.

  As our advocacy focused largely on tackling gender stereotypes as a critical barrier for women’s rights and economic empowerment, we were delighted to see multiple references to gender stereotypes in the final agreed conclusions of CSW’s 66th session. Also, it was great to see commitments to adopt measures to reduce, redistribute and value unpaid care work.

  Did you have the opportunity to participate fully, or did you experience any access issues?

  We did not travel to New York but decided to undertake advocacy virtually given the pandemic. I think that being present in New York would have enhanced our advocacy. Yet I know the virtual format has also enabled more people to join, as advocating in person in New York is beyond reach for most civil society organisations (CSOs).

  It is important to support partners from low and middle-income countries to attend and join these platforms – and provide sustained financial support to multi-year advocacy work in general. Changes in policies and practices rarely happen in a 12-month cycle or if you attend a global platform like CSW only once – advocacy takes time and a long-term commitment. It is only possible with funding to support a longer-term agenda.

  As participation was fully virtual this year, we lacked direct engagement with UN member states as well as opportunity to connect, share and network with advocacy targets and other CSOs. Time zones can pose a challenge too, but many side events provided an option to receive the recording afterwards, which was a really great way to learn about different key themes if people weren’t able to make an event.

  There is no way that online engagement can match in-person engagement, but if everyone is online then access is equal, and it does open more cost-effective avenues for many more grassroots organisations to join.

  Do you think that international bodies, and specifically the UN, adequately integrate women in their decision-making processes?

  I think the rhetoric of commitment to women’s political leadership and integrating women in decision making is there. Yet the right of women to participate politically and lead refers to participation in all levels and there are definitely gender gaps. I learnt at the CSW that only four women have been elected as president of the UN General Assembly in its 76-year history. Also, the UN has never had a woman Secretary-General. So there is more work to do to ensure women’s equal share and representation in decision-making processes at all levels. We also must make sure that the voice and agency of the most vulnerable women and girls is shaping the decisions of these international platforms. We have seen a rollback in advances in women’s rights in many areas, and thus feminist leadership and women’s political participation in UN processes are so critical. We know women’s political leadership can have an impact across many other areas where women lack opportunities and equal access.

  One way to do better is to tackle gender stereotypes more effectively as they undermine women’s rights, opportunities and confidence. It is important to increase the understanding of how gender stereotypes shape women’s lives, including their access to decision making and leadership, and take concrete measures to prevent and eliminate gender stereotypes and their negative impacts, both in private and public spheres. Further efforts are also needed to promote women’s leadership and agency to address the underrepresentation of women and girls in policy-making platforms and processes.

  Get in touch with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women through itswebsite or itsFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@HelenMcEachern and@CherieBlairFndn on Twitter.  

• UK: ‘Education can equip the next generation to disrupt the culture of gender-based violence’

  CIVICUS speaks about the upcoming International Women’s Day and UK civil society’s role in eliminating gender inequality with the team of Bold Voices, a social enterprise that seeks to create spaces for young people to discuss and share experiences of gender inequality and gender-based violence.

  Bold Voices advocates for young people’s right to receive education without being hindered by gender inequality and gender-based violence and works to equip the next generation with the knowledge and tools that will enable it to recognise inequalities in society and find new ways to tackle them. It does so through workshops, talks, digital sessions and online resources for young people and their teachers and parents.

  Do you think COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on women and girls in the UK? What has civil society done to support them?

  COVID-19 has not only impacted on women and girls worse than the rest of the population: it has also exacerbated pre-existing inequalities. Since the pandemic began in 2020, we have seen an unprecedented increase in violence against women and girls, from public street harassment to domestic violence and femicide, as well as the deepening of other pre-existing issues such as the gender gap in unpaid labour.

  As lockdown orders came in, women took up the brunt of childcare, household chores and home-schooling. Civil society expressed concerns that the pandemic might turn back the clock on gender equality. Women of colour were specifically impacted on, as they are overrepresented among ‘essential’ and frontline workers. This meant they were disproportionately exposed to the virus and, due to factors linked to structural racism, at higher risk of serious illness if they contracted it.

  Civil society’s response has been to strengthen support services, including financial, mental health and medical support, as well as to turn to the digital sphere to raise awareness of these issues. We have seen online campaigns gain unprecedented traction in the past two years, paving the way for civil society to put more pressure on the government to respond and enact change.

  Two noteworthy campaigns were the one sparked by outrage over Sarah Everard’s murder and Everyone’s Invited, which provided a virtual space for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories to help expose and eradicate rape culture with empathy, compassion and understanding. This campaign had viral success at a time when public life was almost exclusively online.

  How did you continue doing your work during the pandemic?

  When the pandemic began and schools shut down, as in the rest of the world, Bold Voices’ work had to shift online. Our workshops involve highly trained facilitators who lead students in critical discussion about sensitive topics around gender inequality. Unable to ensure a safe online space to facilitate these difficult conversations, we were unfortunately forced to suspend our workshop programme.

  Instead, we focused on delivering our talks over Zoom, reaching as many students as we could and adapting our work to make it as engaging and far-reaching as possible. Over the pandemic, we have hosted online talks, published blog posts and reached out to our community via social media to stay connected and to continue facilitating conversations around gender-based violence and inequality.

  What are the main women’s rights issues in the UK?

  At Bold Voices we view all women’s rights issues as interconnected. To illustrate this, we refer to Liz Kelly’s idea of a ‘continuum’ of gender-based violence. At the bedrock of gender inequality are the stereotypes that are still widely held in the UK: ideas about masculinity and femininity based on the gender binary that feed into our expectations of how women and men ‘should’ behave. Besides erasing the existence of people who don’t fit into that binary, these stereotypes set up cultural expectations that create a culture of gender-based violence rife with victim-blaming, silencing, objectification of women and slut-shaming.

  These attitudes then feed and shape the structures and institutions that perpetuate these ideas. As a result, our legal system continues to fail survivors of sexual violence, the gender pay gap persists, women continue to be underrepresented in sectors such as business, politics and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines and the media we consume continue to fuel misogyny and glorify violence against women and girls.

  These layers of stereotypes, attitudes and structural inequalities all create a culture in which sexual violence not only exists but thrives and goes unpunished. Looking at this continuum of violence through an intersectional lens, we see that women of colour and minorities are more vulnerable to these experiences because of the way gender inequality overlaps with other forms of oppression.

  How is civil society advocating for change?

  Civil society in the UK is campaigning for legal reform, to shift cultural attitudes and work on change through education. At Bold Voices we believe education is key to dismantling the culture that enables not only violence against women but all forms of inequality that affect women and those who don’t fit into the gender binary.

  In the past few years, we have seen inspiring grassroots campaigns successfully criminalise some acts of sexual violence. Other areas of legal reform such as the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 show progress being made in terms of legal protections for women.

  Public campaigns such as the recent Transport for London campaign to raise awareness of sexual harassment are trying to shift public attitudes. Grassroots social media campaigns exposing the problem of sexual violence in education, such as Everyone’s Invited, have come at the same time as the introduction of new relationships and sex education curriculum in UK schools, meaning all students must learn about consent, among other issues.

  We know this is not enough. None of these actions will close the gender gap, but we believe education can spark the change we need, and the more we facilitate these conversations between young people, the better equipped the next generation will be to disrupt and reshape the culture of gender-based violence that exists all around us.

  The International Women’s Day (IWD) theme for 2022 is #BreakTheBias. How are you organising around it in the communities you work with?

  At Bold Voices we bring the message of IWD to our conversations with young people every day. Disrupting bias, stereotypes and discrimination against women, trans and non-binary people is at the heart of our work, and is the key to challenging gender-based violence. For IWD 2022 we are focusing on reaching out to the Bold Voices community to celebrate and thank our partners for working with us and for being part of the change.

  Civic space in the UK is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Bold Voices through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow them onInstagram andTwitter.