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Summary of a report submitted by Eliane Didier, IFUW Representative to UNESCO:

With the progress of science and technology and with questions arising on globalization, ethical issues - in particular bioethics, concern us all. In response, UNESCO has proposed an institutional framework for collective discussion. It calls for NGOs to take part in bioethics education and information, bringing closer biomedical and environmental ethics.

Various UNESCO resources have been created, such as the GEObs data bank and programmes to assist with establishing bioethics committees. Also, different activities have been organized to facilitate civil society to participate in the implementation of bioethical education and training, for example lectures by experts in the fields of biology, biomedical science, environmental science, philosophy, law and sociology. Specific workshops organized at the International Conference of NGOs (Paris, December 2007) contributed to the development of an ethical code of conduct for scientists.

Some for the main questions now being considered are:
• How to teach/educate bioethics?
• Who can claim this competence?
• How to reconcile cultural identities and universal standards?
• Bioethics education for whom?

IFUW has been invited to answer these questions, and to put forward its objectives and priorities as special attention will be given to ethical questions related to basic human rights, like health and procreation (woman, mother, child), hygiene, nutrition, environment and sustainable development.

Note: WG-USA members who wish to comment should send emails to lbr@ifuw.org.

To read the full report in English: www.ifuw.org/docs/Bioethics_1108_English.pdf

Filed under: UNESCO
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Culture is and always has been central to development. As a natural and fundamental dimension of people’s lives, culture must be integrated into development policy and programming. This report shows how this process works in practice. In particular, Chapter 3 discusses how gender equality and empowering women is integral to population issues.

Cultures are neither static nor monolithic…. They adapt to new opportunities and challenges and evolving realities. What is seen as “the culture” may in fact be a viewpoint held by a small group of elites keen to hold onto their power and status. The tensions and diverging goals inherent in every culture create opportunities for UN Population Fund (UNPFA) to promote human rights and gender equality, particularly when UNFPA can partner with local agents of social change and challenge dominant views from within the same cultural frame of reference.

Some Conclusions
The starting point of this report is the universal validity and application of the international human rights framework. Understanding how values, practices and beliefs affect human behaviour is fundamental to the design of effective programmes that help people and nations realize human rights. Nowhere is this understanding more important than in the area of power relations between men and women and their impact on reproductive health and rights. Development practice is firmly located at this nexus of culture, gender relations and human rights. It is from this point that creative and sustainable interventions emerge.

For complete report, go to: http://www.unfpa.org/swp/

Filed under: Gender Status
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From an IFUW Alert to the Advocacy Network; to receive alerts to your email address, go to http://www.ifuw.org/networks

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On the 6th of November a meeting took place in Geneva to examine the case for a new CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) General Recommendation on Older Women focusing on “Strengthening the Protection of the Rights of Older Women”.

It is a fact that older women experience ageing differently to men and that the discrimination older women experience is often compoundied by other forms of discrimination based on gender, ethnic origin, disability, levels of poverty or literacy. In her welcome address, Ms Begum, CEDAW Committe Member, stressed the importance of each and every article in the Convention to older women and urged the Committee to build on this with the creation of a working group to draft a General Recommendation. There will also be support from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for such a General Recommendation.

Some of the key issues raised by CEDAW Committee Members and NGO speakers during the meeting:
• A General Recommendation on older women would provide a focus around which the Committee could unite. It would be a tool that would help them work efficiently and effectively on intersectional discrimination and strengthen the Committee as an institution.
• The issue of ageing is shared by both developing and developed countries. Discrimination is an issue, though in different ways, for all older women, rich and poor.
• Human rights are inalienable and all women have the right to grow old with dignity. Older women must not be viewed as victims but recognized for the contribution that they have made and continue to make to the societies in which they live, the knowledge they possess and the strengths that they have.
• Globalization, climate change, urbanization and migration are factors that can compound the vulnerability of many poor older women, particularly those living in rural areas.
• Older women experience intersectional discrimination in a number of areas of their lives: in the workplace, in lack of access to land ownership, in discriminatory inheritance laws and practices, in access to health services, and in elder abuse.
• Older women from minority, indigenous or other marginalized populations often disproportionately experience discrimination.

For the the full report from Conchita Poncini, Geneva UN representative Coordinator, please go to: http://www.ifuw.org/docs/Report_OlderWomenRecommendation_6Nov08.pdf

Filed under: CEDAW Action
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The World Economic Forum yesterday released the 2008 World Gender Gap Report. The Report includes detailed profiles that provide insight into the economic, legal and social aspects of the gender gap in each country. The Report measures the size of the gender gap in four critical areas of inequality between men and women:

1) Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
2) Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher-level education
3) Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
4) Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio

The report shows that globally progress has been made on narrowing the gaps in educational attainment, political empowerment and economic participation, while the gap in health has widened. According to Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum “Greater representation of women in senior leadership positions within governments and financial institutions is vital not only to find solutions to the current economic turmoil, but to stave off such crises in future.”

The 2008 World Gender Gap Report can be downloaded from: www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2008.pdf

Filed under: Gender Status
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A posting from Leigh Bradford Ratteree, IFUW Secretary General, states, “We invite you to visit the revised IFUW website. It has a fresh look, is more interactive and is easier to navigate. Information is grouped and easier to find. It highlights international action and national news. There is a new blog where members can comment and share their views and the bulletin boards are more accesible from the Member’s Corner.

IFUW staff members Anamaria Vere and Réka Fogarasi have done an excellent job. The website is our best publicity and recruitment tool. We encourage you all to visit the new site, to give feedback on the new format and suggestions for further improvement, and to share news of your national or local activities.

Filed under: IFUW News
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The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) was launched in April 2000 at the World Education Forum in Dakar by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Its goal is to narrow the gender gap in primary and secondary education and to ensure that by 2015, all children complete primary schooling, with girls and boys having equal access to all levels of education.

UNGEI, the EFA flagship for girls’ education, is a partnership that embraces the United Nations system, governments, donor countries, non-governmental organizations, civil society, the private sector, and communities and families. UNGEI provides stakeholders with a platform for action and galvanizes their efforts to get girls in school.

UNGEI’s vision is a world where all girls and boys will have equal access to free, quality education.
UNGEI members are actively involved in the EFA Working Group coordinated by UNESCO, the EFA Fast Track Initiative led by the World Bank and the Acceleration Strategy for Girls’ Education developed by UNICEF.

UNICEF is the lead agency and Secretariat for UNGEI. A Global Advisory Committee is composed of key partners who share in the planning, decision-making, guidance and accountability of UNGEI. UNGEI Focal Points in different regions facilitate the coordination of girls’ education strategies and interventions at the country level.

UNGEI is interested in expanding partnerships and is open to all agencies and organizations that work for girls’ education, including governmental and non-governmental organizations, civil society and the private sector.

As an individual, you are invited to sign up for occasional email alerts that keeps you up-to-date with the status of girls education around the world. Go to http://www.ungei.org/

Filed under: Girls and Education
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The Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund alleviates poverty and achieves gender equality in developing countries one women’s group at a time.

Today, is Blog Action Day and the topic is poverty. Thanks to Women Graduates – USA for allowing me to be a guest blogger today.

In recent years, the link between gender the empowerment of women and combating poverty has become popular. For example, in September 2000, the United Nation’s Millennium Declaration resolved to “promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable.” The Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund has been addressing empowering women and reducing poverty for almost 40 years, inspired by a 1964 meeting of a group of IFUW women from Africa, Europe, and the Americas, in Kampala, Uganda, to discuss strategies for women’s development in Africa. They agreed that much could be accomplished with “small amounts of funds for projects by educated women.” After that meeting, Althea Hottle, then president of IFUW, worked to establish the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund (VGIF). Since its establishment in 1969, VGIF has funded over 300 successful projects funded with over 1,400,000 USD. In 2008, VGIF funded 30 grants in 21 countries.

A few examples:

• A 72 year old women participating in the Fond des Blancs Alphabet Literacy Program in Haiti spoke of the relief she felt as she would not die without learning to write her name.
• Community Health workers in the Yunnan Province in China have been trained to work in their villages to address nutrition, child development and children’s diseases, HIV/AIDs and STDs, maternal and reproductive health, and women’s organs and their diseases.
• Women in the Rift valley of Kenya have built ferro-cement water tanks, ensuring safe and accessible water for bathing, drinking and cooking for community women and their families.
• Traditional Birth Attendants and Midwives in 24 villages in the Akwa Iborn State of Nigeria were trained and given modern midwifery kits in order to reduce maternal mortality and provide comprehensive health care for adolescent girls and women in the communities.
• Cameroonian women were trained in bee farming and given supplies to start their own beekeeping businesses.
• Women in India were trained in candle making and attended literacy classes. They are using the excess income from their project to open a small textile business and are planning to establish a school for their children.
• VGIF has been able to fund these grants through generous donations from individuals and groups. We need your help to continue this work:

Read our Annual Report for 2007.

Serve on committees and on the Board. VGIF has 2 part-time employees. Most of its work is done by volunteers.

Visit project sites and report on their activities or recommend women students who are interested in making visits.

Donate funds. All donations are used for project grants. Our administrative costs are paid from an endowment established for that purpose.

Learn more about VGIF activities in India by joining us on a Friendship Tour of India in November 2009.

For more information about VGIF, visit our website – www.VGIF.org or email vgif@vgif.org.

Eileen Shelley Menton

President, VGIF and member of WG-USA

Filed under: Connections, Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund
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The International Federation of University Women (IFUW) is pleased to
announce an art competition to raise awareness of the challenges facing
women and girls in accessing education and leadership positions in
today’s world. The competition is open to all IFUW members and other
artists proposed by IFUW’s national federations and associations (NFAs).
Winning entries will be used for a series of postcards and posters. The
deadline for submissions is 28 April 2009.

Competition guidelines are attached and are also available at:
http://www.ifuw.org/postercomp/

Filed under: IFUW Action for WG
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The United States remains one of 8 countries which have not ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, passed in 1979. We are in the company of such countries as Iran, Qatar, Sudan, Somalia, Tonga, Palau and Nauru.

With a new Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Executive Branch in government as of January 2009, opportunity to have this ratified by the Senate may be at an all-time high. As you interact with your Senate candidates at any time before the election, or after the new Session begins, make your wishes known. Women are depending on you!

Billie Heller, who has headed the National Committee on CEDAW for many years, states in her latest “send-out,” the Democratic Party Platform has reinserted both CEDAW and the ERA into its language, while the Republican Party told her, their “platform is a work in progress.”

To be connected to Billie’s network, contact her at billicedaw@aol.com. For additional information, go to http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/

Filed under: UN News
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Women Graduates-USA
Press Release
October 8, 2009

Women Graduates-USA has received word of its affiliation with the International Federation of University Women by a unanimous vote. WG-USA joins with 78 other countries around the world as an international network linking women graduates from all cultures, all fields of study, all professions and all generations.

The first Annual General Meeting of Women Graduates-USA will take place October 17-18 at Perry, Iowa.

Learn more about Women Graduates-USA at www.wg-usa.org Applications are available on-line. WG-USA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower women globally through education, friendship, and mutual support to secure a better world.

The International Federation of University Women was initiated in 1919 by the leadership of Dean Virginia Gildersleeve of the American Collegiate Association and Rose Sidgewick of Great Britain. Eight associations from Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States formed the original organization. The American Association of University Women served as the United States affiliate organization until 2007.

Contact: Florine Swanson, President info@wg-usa.org

Filed under: WG Press Releases, What's New at WG
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