High Level Meeting - Establishing Effective National Gender Mechanism:

Experience of OIC Member States

Interactive Discussion

23 December, 12:30-14:00

(Bosphorus Hall, Level P)

 

Moderator: M. Erol Kılıç, Secretary General of PUIC

Participants:

Ministers of Family, Women, Children and Social Policy from OIC member states

 

Format

The Organizing Board plan to conduct the high level meeting in the format of interactive round- table discussion. It will follow the opening ceremony (please see the agenda attached). This format will be an excellent opportunity to provide brief overview of the effective gender instruments and strategies and of status of gender equality in OIC member states.

 

The interactive discussion will be spread on 6 consecutive parts.

 

The moderator will ask ministers the questions about the respective instrument/body functional in their country. Each answer is planned to take no more than 2 minutes.

 

The questions drafted as a list by the Organizing Board are provided below. The questions will be distributed among ministers to ensure smooth and throughout preparation. In case of any minister is not satisfied with the selection, the moderator will change the questions at the first notice.

 

All the official addresses and reports that the ministers prepare will be disseminated to all participants of the conference as handouts.

 

The High - level meeting will demonstrate the variety of strategies and instruments of ensuring gender equality that are applied in OIC member states.

 

Topics and Questions to Discussed

1. Women in Parliament

1. How exactly have you achieved certain percentage of women in your parliament? What factors and measures led to this?
2. How, why, and when will gender inequality disappear?
3. Why is it so hard to explain gender equality?
4. How you work in your country towards integrating a gender and equality perspective into all areas of society?
5. How to gain the adequate level of women representation in the parliament?
6. Are the state bodies and society satisfied with the number of women you have now? Does your country need to increase the number of women in decision making?
7. How can we increase number of women parliamentarians in Turkey?
8. What is the reason of low number of women-MPs in your country?
9. What would you recommend to the states that have not achieved good progress in women empowerment?

 

2. Specific Bodies Within the Government Responsible for Gender Policy

1. Do you have specific bodies within the government responsible for gender policy?
2. What mechanism and instruments do you consider the most effective in implementation of gender policy?
3. What is the most difficult in solving gender problems?
4. How quickly did the specific body start to bring results in your country?

 

3. National Gender Action Plans

1. What are the priorities of your national action plan?
2. Which of the priorities of your action plan is the most important for you? Which is the most difficult to implement?
3. When and how your state has adopted national gender plan?
4. How many priorities shall national gender plan contain to be effective?

 

4. Gender Budgeting

1. Why is gender budgeting necessary?
2. Why does gender budgeting focus on women?
3. What gender budgeting initiative does your country support?
4. What is the budget of gender policy in your country? Is there a necessity to allocate some percent of any budget to gender- specific needs of the respective area?

 

5. Role of Men in Ensuring Gender Equality

1. What is your opinion on engaging men and boys to achieve gender equality?
2. Why men have a stake in gender equality?
3. How to engage men to promote gender equality?
4. Why it is difficult to involve men in gender equality?

 

6. Role of NGOs in Promoting Gender Equality.

1. How is the relation between women and gender NGOs and the state bodies in your country?
2. What is the contribution of NGOs in solving gender equality issues in your country?
3. What should be the priorities of women NGOs activities?
4. How strong are non-governmental networks of women in your country? What are the results of their work?

 

 

Plenary Session1- Strengthening Democracy through Women's Political Participation

Addresses by Head of Delegations

December 23, 2011, 15:00-17:00

(Dolmabahçe Hall, Level R)

Studies show higher numbers of women in parliament generally contribute to stronger attention to women’s issues. Women’s political participation is a key component of democracy. Women occupy only 18% of parliamentary seats around the world. Regional averages of the percentage of women in parliament vary greatly:

Nordic countries - 41.4%

Americas - 21.8%

Europe (excluding Nordic countries) - 19.1%

Asia - 17.4%

Sub-Saharan Africa - 17.2%

Pacific - 13.4%

Arab states - 9.6%

 

Many factors hinder women’s political participation, such as political parties being slow to respond to women’s interest, under-investment in women’s campaigns, cultural barriers, and conflicting demands on the time of women candidates due to their domestic and social responsibilities.

 

Political accountability to women begins with increasing the number of women in decision-making positions, but it cannot stop there. What is required are gender-sensitive governance reforms that will make all elected officials more effective at promoting gender equality in public policy and ensuring their implementation.

 

 

Key questions to be addressed include:

What is the current rate of women representation in the parliaments of OIC member states?

 

How to gain adequate level of women representation in the national parliaments?

 

What is more effective for the countries that are just starting their gender policies?

 

 

 

Plenary Session 2- Women Rights in the Changing Middle-East and North Africa

December 23, 2011, 17:15-19:00

(Dolmabahçe Hall, Level R)

As citizens throughout the Middle East and North Africa call for social and political reform, new challenges and opportunities are developing for women in the region. This time of transition is a pivotal moment to advance the rights of women and girls and to ensure they are active participants in determining the course ahead.

 

Egypt and Tunisia in particular have a long history of women’s movements and struggles for women’s rights. What we saw in the uprising in the entire region, but in particular Tunisia and Egypt, is the reaction of both women and men—but women in particular—to a host of issues and grievances: lack of democracy and human rights, safety, security, poverty, and growing class division in the region. If the new constitution effectively guarantees women’s rights, it will give added impetus to women’s activists to work towards ensuring that future laws do not discriminate between men and women. Since the constitution is the source law of the country, it should provide guidelines regarding women's rights.

 

Gender inequalities often stem from social structures that have institutionalized conceptions of gender differences. Today, the international community recommends that a number of measures be taken in order to promote a more balanced representation of men and women in decision-making bodies. The goal of gender balance in decision making may be attained by several measures and that multiple measures remain necessary for the achievement of more inclusive decision-making assemblies.

 

 

Key questions to be addressed include:

In changing Muslim societies are women making progress?

 

How to re-write a constitution that takes into account the issue of women’s emancipation?

 

How to promote a political system which takes women’s rights as a priority?

 

 

 

Plenary Session 3- Islam and Democracy

December 24, 2011, 09:00-10:45

(Dolmabahçe Hall, Level R)

 

Two extremely different groups, one from the West and one from the Muslim World, have been arguing vehemently that Islam and Democracy are incompatible. On one hand, some western scholars and ideologues have tried to present Islam as an anti-democratic and inherently authoritarian ethos that precludes democratization in the Muslims World. Turkey sets a fantastic example for nations around the world to see where it's possible to have a democracy coexist with a great religion like Islam.

 

The equitable participation of women in politics and government is essential to building and sustaining democracy. Gender equality is an intrinsic part of Islamic belief. In surveying the women who have been prominent in the history of the Islamic world, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a strong prototype for Muslim women and that women's rights are alive in the very theology of Islam.

 

Muslim women are making inexorable progress towards greater gender equality.

 

Key questions to be addressed include:

Can Islam and democracy coexist? Is Islam compatible with democracy?

 

Islam and Gender Equality: Could there is a common ground?

 

Gender inequality: is it just an Islamic issue?

 

 

 

Plenary Session 4 - Enabling Civil Society and Regional Cooperation: Establishing the "Gender Equality Institute"

December 24, 2011, 11:00-12:30

(Dolmabahçe Hall, Level R)

 

Civil society, in particular women’s organizations, play a vital role in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, and strong and dynamic relationships between governments and civil society partners in all parts of the world are crucial in working towards the achievement these goals.

 

Progress towards gender equality depends upon strategic and well-targeted interventions. An important priority is to ensure that all country and regional strategies and their performance frameworks integrate gender equality objectives and indicators and identify actions for tackling inequality.

 

Although gender-equality policy varies in the different countries, the OIC member states have many characteristics in common and face similar issues. This makes it easy for us to learn from each other’s' experiences, hold political discussions and determine which strategies are the most effective in order to achieve common objectives. In this respect, establishing the Institute for Gender Equality could play a significant role in providing the expertise needed to develop gender equality policies across the OIC member states.

 

 

Key questions to be addressed include:

What is the role of NGOs in addressing gender inequality?

 

How to affirm high-level support and direct top-level policies for gender equality and women rights?

 

How to promote effective regional cooperation?

 

How to promote the exchange of experience and dialogue between all relevant stakeholders, specifically the social partners, non-governmental organizations and research centers?

 

Is there a need for establishing "gender Equality Institute"? What are the objectives and aims of the proposed Gender Institute? How should it be structured and governed?

 

 

 

 

 

Final Declaration

TASLAK SONUÇ BİLDİRGESİ

مسودة إعلان المؤتمر

DRAFT FINAL DECLARATION

PROJET DE DECLARATION DE LA CONFERENCE