DAWN

Multilateralism & Multi-stakeholderism: Where does accountability for the corporate sector fit in?

Join this UNGA76 side event exploring corporate influence across the United Nations System, and identifying ways in which civil society and all actors can resist corporate influence with a view to build a more accountable and equitable system that operates in the interests of people and planet, rather than profit.

 Register:  bit.ly/AccountabilityForCorporateSector

Speakers will include:

  • Moderator: Barbara Adams, Global Policy Forum
  • Cai Yiping, Development Alternatives for Women (DAWN)
  • Emilia Reyes, Campaign of Campaigns/Equidad de Genero
  • Debbie Stothard, ALTSEAN / Steering Committee of Corporate Accountability Working Group at ESCR-Net

Some guiding questions:

  • How can pushes for inclusivity have unintended consequences for enhancing corporate influence across the United Nations system?
  •  How do states and governments use PPPs and the idea of multistakeholderism to obfuscate responsibilities to their populations?
  •  How can corporations be held accountable to Human Rights mechanisms and international law?
  • What changes are needed to transform the way in which the UN System is funded to reduce or combat corporate capture of decision-making?

This event will be recorded and uploaded to the Women’s Major Group YouTube Channel. Interpretation will be available in French and Spanish.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Major Group, please visit ngomg.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit congocsd.wordpress.com.

Multilateralism & Multi-stakeholderism: Where does accountability for the corporate sector fit in?

Join this UNGA76 side event exploring corporate influence across the United Nations System, and identifying ways in which civil society and all actors can resist corporate influence with a view to build a more accountable and equitable system that operates in the interests of people and planet, rather than profit.

 Register:  bit.ly/AccountabilityForCorporateSector

Speakers will include:

  • Moderator: Barbara Adams, Global Policy Forum
  • Cai Yiping, Development Alternatives for Women (DAWN)
  • Emilia Reyes, Campaign of Campaigns/Equidad de Genero
  • Debbie Stothard, ALTSEAN / Steering Committee of Corporate Accountability Working Group at ESCR-Net

Some guiding questions:

  • How can pushes for inclusivity have unintended consequences for enhancing corporate influence across the United Nations system?
  •  How do states and governments use PPPs and the idea of multistakeholderism to obfuscate responsibilities to their populations?
  •  How can corporations be held accountable to Human Rights mechanisms and international law?
  • What changes are needed to transform the way in which the UN System is funded to reduce or combat corporate capture of decision-making?

This event will be recorded and uploaded to the Women’s Major Group YouTube Channel. Interpretation will be available in French and Spanish.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Major Group, please visit ngomg.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit congocsd.wordpress.com.

Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2021: Demanding Justice Beyond Rhetoric

Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have exacerbated rather than reduced global inequalities. The most visible example of this is the global disparity in the distribution of vaccines. So far more than 60 percent of people in high-income countries have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, but less than 2 percent have done so in low-income countries. In view of this dramatic disparity, the “leave no one behind” mantra of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remains hollow. In fact, the vested interests of economic elites continue to dominate political decision-making. Given the urgency of the COVID-19 crisis and the other unresolved global problems, most notably the climate emergency, it is high time for transformative policies, strategies and structural changes.

This year’s Spotlight on Sustainable Development Report describes the highly uneven socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis and analyses the policy responses to it. It explores beyond the rhetoric, highlighting deepening inequalities, self-serving and hypocritical policies and governance failures at national and international level. Addressing the imbalance in global vaccine production and distribution, the report also examines a few key areas where political and structural changes are necessary to correct the limited and asymmetric recovery. With this virtual launching event, we will present key findings of the report.

Brief snapshots by:

  • K.M. Gopakumar, Third World Network
  • Vanita Mukherjee, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
  • Roberto Bissio, Social Watch

Policy conclusions by:

  • Kate Donald, Center for Economic and Social Right
  • Daria Cibrario, Public Services International (PSI)
  • Isabel Ortiz,Global Social Justice

Moderators:

  • Bodo Ellmers, Global Policy Forum
  • María Graciela Cuervo, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)

Register here: rsvp.globalpolicy.org/report-launch-spotlight-on-sustainable-development-2021-demanding-justice-beyond-rhetoric.

Participants will receive the login details one day before the event. Further information on the Spotlight Report 2021 will be available shortly at www.2030spotlight.org

____________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit congocsd.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org.

Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2021: Demanding Justice Beyond Rhetoric

Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have exacerbated rather than reduced global inequalities. The most visible example of this is the global disparity in the distribution of vaccines. So far more than 60 percent of people in high-income countries have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, but less than 2 percent have done so in low-income countries. In view of this dramatic disparity, the “leave no one behind” mantra of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remains hollow. In fact, the vested interests of economic elites continue to dominate political decision-making. Given the urgency of the COVID-19 crisis and the other unresolved global problems, most notably the climate emergency, it is high time for transformative policies, strategies and structural changes.

This year’s Spotlight on Sustainable Development Report describes the highly uneven socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis and analyses the policy responses to it. It explores beyond the rhetoric, highlighting deepening inequalities, self-serving and hypocritical policies and governance failures at national and international level. Addressing the imbalance in global vaccine production and distribution, the report also examines a few key areas where political and structural changes are necessary to correct the limited and asymmetric recovery. With this virtual launching event, we will present key findings of the report.

Brief snapshots by:

  • K.M. Gopakumar, Third World Network
  • Vanita Mukherjee, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
  • Roberto Bissio, Social Watch

Policy conclusions by:

  • Kate Donald, Center for Economic and Social Right
  • Daria Cibrario, Public Services International (PSI)
  • Isabel Ortiz,Global Social Justice

Moderators:

  • Bodo Ellmers, Global Policy Forum
  • María Graciela Cuervo, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)

Register here: rsvp.globalpolicy.org/report-launch-spotlight-on-sustainable-development-2021-demanding-justice-beyond-rhetoric.

Participants will receive the login details one day before the event. Further information on the Spotlight Report 2021 will be available shortly at www.2030spotlight.org

____________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit congocsd.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org.

[Webinar] Care & Labor Rights: Challenges from the Capitalist Pandemic

Save the Date, virtual meeting details TBA. Interested attendees are encouraged to check organizer websites or contact co-conveners in the meantime.

Care & Labor Rights: Challenges from the Capitalist Pandemic

This webinar by Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development is part of a series of action-oriented dialogues on the macro agendas and the current crises: Macro Solutions for Women, the People and the Planet.

Wednesday, 29 July 2020 @ 9 am NY/ 10 am Montevideo/ 2 pm London/ 15 hrs Brussels/ 16 hrs Nairobi/ 20 hrs Bangkok

Speakers:

Corina Rodriguez, Executive Committee Member, DAWN

Shahra Razavi, Director, Social Protection Department, International Labour Organisation

Laura Alfers, Director, Social Protection Programme, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)

Concept Note

The COVID-19 Pandemic has starkly exposed the multiple inequalities that are intertwined in the world of work. First, it has forcefully revealed something that feminists have been repeating for a long time: the role of care is central  to sustain life in our societies. In a context of a health crisis,  where “staying at home” is one of the main strategies to face the emergency, care arrangements  have become more complex while  sexual division of labor continues to weight on women. Furthermore, there is an added pressure in the form of forced teleworking, which leads to situations where the boundaries between paid work and unpaid care work become blurred, working conditions become precarious and rights are easily violated.

Secondly, those in the informal economy bear heavier burdens in this crisis. Not working and staying at home has meant losing jobs and  livelihoods for the majority of informal workers and their families. Physical distancing is difficult to apply to those working in public spaces, such as street or market vendors, paid domestic workers or others in manufacturing or retail trade. The majority of workers in the informal economy are having less access to income resulting in increasing poverty and plunging workers and households into more precarious living conditions. The dimensions of this crisis are severe: The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reported that informal workers in Asia and Latin America endured an income decline of 81 percent during the first month of lock-downs. The situation of migrant workers has been particularly affected, given the higher exposure to occupational health and safety risks, no appropriate protection, exclusion from social protection measures directed towards nationals, as well as the restriction of movement and the accelerated destruction of jobs.

The context has also exposed the weakness of social protection systems to deal with the situation, and in most cases the applied immediate public policy responses have been insufficient.

Third, in the current context, it is important to analyse those groups of workers that are exposed in a differentiated form. On the one side are those in “front-line” jobs: health workers, workers at essential retail shops, paid domestic workers. The “front-line” is a predominantly feminized “front-line” workforce. In tandem, workers in platform jobs, many of which have seen an increase in the demand for their services but also higher levels of exploitation of their working conditions.

While some countries and some working sectors are coping more successfully with the emergency situation, most, especially those countries in the Global South, face a more serious form of exploitation already imposed by the pre-existing global financial capitalist model.

Can the harshness of the exposure of deepening inequalities serve as a spark to ignite and accelerate processes of transformation towards a “new normal” that is indeed new and different from the old normality? What feminist strategies can we draw on to activate an agenda of transformation in the world of work that serves women, people and the planet? What new challenges do we face and how should we adapt our analysis, our advocacy, our activism? What space can we create so that the post-COVID-19 pandemic does not continue to be a capitalist pandemic?

This webinar aims at reflecting on these questions and will be organized with four 10-12 minutes presentations, followed by a session of Q&A.

Objectives

  • To draw key elements of the agenda of transformation in the world of work from a feminist perspective;
  • To Identify common strategies across movements working on informal economy, care and work with different groups and constituencies (migrants, domestic workers, grassroots women, rural women, women in health sector);
  • To map advocacy spaces and mechanisms within the UN that may be used to activate our agenda of transformation of the world of work;
  • Facilitate cross-movement building and solidarity among civil society groups and activists mobilizing for care, workers rights, gender equality.
DAWN is a network of feminist scholars, researchers and activists from the economic South working for economic and gender justice and sustainable and democratic development. DAWN promotes critical analysis on global issues (economic, social and political) affecting the livelihoods, living standards, rights and development prospects of women, especially poor and marginalized women, in regions of the South. DAWN seeks to support women’s mobilization within civil society to challenge inequitable social, economic and political relations at global, regional and national levels, and to advance feminist alternatives.

The Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD) is an alliance of women’s organizations and networks who advocate for the advancement of women’s human rights and gender equality in the Financing for Development related UN processes.

Co-Conveners:

Rosa Lizarde, Global Director, Feminist Task Force; rosa.lizarde@feministtaskforce.org  

Emilia Reyes, Program Director, Policies & Budgets for Equality & Sustainable Development, Gender Equity: Citizenship, Work & Family; emilia@equidad.org.mx

______________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org.

[Webinar] Care & Labor Rights: Challenges from the Capitalist Pandemic

Save the Date, virtual meeting details TBA. Interested attendees are encouraged to check organizer websites or contact co-conveners in the meantime.

Care & Labor Rights: Challenges from the Capitalist Pandemic

This webinar by Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development is part of a series of action-oriented dialogues on the macro agendas and the current crises: Macro Solutions for Women, the People and the Planet.

Wednesday, 29 July 2020 @ 9 am NY/ 10 am Montevideo/ 2 pm London/ 15 hrs Brussels/ 16 hrs Nairobi/ 20 hrs Bangkok

Speakers:

Corina Rodriguez, Executive Committee Member, DAWN

Shahra Razavi, Director, Social Protection Department, International Labour Organisation

Laura Alfers, Director, Social Protection Programme, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)

Concept Note

The COVID-19 Pandemic has starkly exposed the multiple inequalities that are intertwined in the world of work. First, it has forcefully revealed something that feminists have been repeating for a long time: the role of care is central  to sustain life in our societies. In a context of a health crisis,  where “staying at home” is one of the main strategies to face the emergency, care arrangements  have become more complex while  sexual division of labor continues to weight on women. Furthermore, there is an added pressure in the form of forced teleworking, which leads to situations where the boundaries between paid work and unpaid care work become blurred, working conditions become precarious and rights are easily violated.

Secondly, those in the informal economy bear heavier burdens in this crisis. Not working and staying at home has meant losing jobs and  livelihoods for the majority of informal workers and their families. Physical distancing is difficult to apply to those working in public spaces, such as street or market vendors, paid domestic workers or others in manufacturing or retail trade. The majority of workers in the informal economy are having less access to income resulting in increasing poverty and plunging workers and households into more precarious living conditions. The dimensions of this crisis are severe: The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reported that informal workers in Asia and Latin America endured an income decline of 81 percent during the first month of lock-downs. The situation of migrant workers has been particularly affected, given the higher exposure to occupational health and safety risks, no appropriate protection, exclusion from social protection measures directed towards nationals, as well as the restriction of movement and the accelerated destruction of jobs.

The context has also exposed the weakness of social protection systems to deal with the situation, and in most cases the applied immediate public policy responses have been insufficient.

Third, in the current context, it is important to analyse those groups of workers that are exposed in a differentiated form. On the one side are those in “front-line” jobs: health workers, workers at essential retail shops, paid domestic workers. The “front-line” is a predominantly feminized “front-line” workforce. In tandem, workers in platform jobs, many of which have seen an increase in the demand for their services but also higher levels of exploitation of their working conditions.

While some countries and some working sectors are coping more successfully with the emergency situation, most, especially those countries in the Global South, face a more serious form of exploitation already imposed by the pre-existing global financial capitalist model.

Can the harshness of the exposure of deepening inequalities serve as a spark to ignite and accelerate processes of transformation towards a “new normal” that is indeed new and different from the old normality? What feminist strategies can we draw on to activate an agenda of transformation in the world of work that serves women, people and the planet? What new challenges do we face and how should we adapt our analysis, our advocacy, our activism? What space can we create so that the post-COVID-19 pandemic does not continue to be a capitalist pandemic?

This webinar aims at reflecting on these questions and will be organized with four 10-12 minutes presentations, followed by a session of Q&A.

Objectives

  • To draw key elements of the agenda of transformation in the world of work from a feminist perspective;
  • To Identify common strategies across movements working on informal economy, care and work with different groups and constituencies (migrants, domestic workers, grassroots women, rural women, women in health sector);
  • To map advocacy spaces and mechanisms within the UN that may be used to activate our agenda of transformation of the world of work;
  • Facilitate cross-movement building and solidarity among civil society groups and activists mobilizing for care, workers rights, gender equality.
DAWN is a network of feminist scholars, researchers and activists from the economic South working for economic and gender justice and sustainable and democratic development. DAWN promotes critical analysis on global issues (economic, social and political) affecting the livelihoods, living standards, rights and development prospects of women, especially poor and marginalized women, in regions of the South. DAWN seeks to support women’s mobilization within civil society to challenge inequitable social, economic and political relations at global, regional and national levels, and to advance feminist alternatives.

The Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD) is an alliance of women’s organizations and networks who advocate for the advancement of women’s human rights and gender equality in the Financing for Development related UN processes.

Co-Conveners:

Rosa Lizarde, Global Director, Feminist Task Force; rosa.lizarde@feministtaskforce.org  

Emilia Reyes, Program Director, Policies & Budgets for Equality & Sustainable Development, Gender Equity: Citizenship, Work & Family; emilia@equidad.org.mx

______________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org.