The Regional Institute of Gender, Diversity, Peace and Rights of Ahfad University for Women took initiative and developed a concept note in August to guarantee that gender concerns will be adequately addressed in such a conference. The conference idea was shared with the Norwegian Embassy in Khartoum and a proposal to the UN Women, Khartoum Office for partnership to hold the above mentioned conference. UN Women was requested to kindly fund the workshop which was immediately accepted the conference was perceived as timely and needed.
North Sudan after 9th July 2011 became a new country with a different profile of land, size, population, resources, and boundaries and faced with economic challenges after a long term of dependency on oil revenue that will be greatly reduced. Moreover, threatened by ongoing conflicts, all this face Sudan with further emerging challenges. Low human development indicators where gender and regional disparity are manifested and non achievement of the MDGs are additional burden for the state to prioritize. The dwindling productive sector of agriculture where most women are economically active and rural areas where majority of the population reside and dependency on agro-husbandry based subsistence economy are further key issues of concern.
Economic growth that did not generate employment opportunities nor poverty alleviation or impacted positively in closing gender, rural/urban, regional disparity and has widened the gap between the haves and haves not, is an indicator of lack of the application of good governance principles, democracy, accountability, transparency, people’s engagement and non commitment to end gender based injustice and inequalities.
The current gender related indicators, all lead us to conclude that poverty is feminized, gender gap in education is prevalent, women’s wealth is much lower, women’s benefit from banks loans, from development projects are much lower compared to men. High maternal mortalities, low positioning in the civil service ladder, in political parties in executive body are all indicators that make us call for action to rectify the profile.
A call is for the urgent need to empower women in all spheres so as to take a lead role in development as well as to be a main beneficiary from its outcome.
The government, political parties, legislative bodies, private sector , all civil society sectors as well as the donors and other international community groups need all to emphasize their commitments, to develop their agendas, policies, programmes , projects, budgets in a way to guarantee that gender justice, women empowerment and gender mainstreaming are achieved.
If women missed the historic moment whereby a new Sudan is in the making and did not raise their voices, demands and lead a dynamism for transformation; they would be marginalized and their needs , interests and dreams will be ignored and undermined or will have only lip of service promises.
Participants from different sectors, academia, journalists, ministries, banks, UN agencies, NGOs, Students, Private sector, and consultants participated.
The conference was opened by a welcome speech from the President of Ahfad University for Women Prof. Gasim Badri and two key note speeches from Mrs. Trine Eskedal Joranli, Deputy Head of Mission, Head of Development Department, Norwegian Embassy, Khartoum and Ms. Rabab Baldo on behalf of UN Women- Khartoum.
Mrs. Joranli said “It is great opportunity to come together to measure how women can make use and benefit from their resources for economic empowerment. How to make women utilize their resources effectively to empower themselves and to participate better in economy so as to eradicate poverty.” She said” Women have multi-role, she has to consider this: she is a mother, how many children to have. She has to decide on number of children. Women have a role in the MDGs and in labor market. Women has to work hard to promote gender equality and to participate in microcredit. Educated women have to participate in elimination of illiteracy (Education for all slogan). University students have to take responsibility in enhancing gender equality. Women must use all available resources in a holistic approach in terms of politics, budget, planning, and institutional.
Ms. Rabab. Photo: Ahfad University for WomenMs. Rabab highlighted the international community commitment towards women empowerment since the women decades of 1979 to date, emphasizing main areas of commitments. She puts emphasis on the strategic plan of the UN Women in promoting gender equality and women empowerment. This can be achieved through many ways: To ensure budgeting process i.e gender budgeting in all institutions. Economic empowerment in rural areas and women security. National women initiatives in economy. Mobilize women wealth . Increasing capabilities of women. She emphasizes the importance of partnership among NGOs and academic institutions and among parliamentary women to ensure budgeting and monitoring it.
Six main papers were presented on the issues of macro analysis of Sudan economy, the challenges it faces, the causes and impact on future economic production/growth/MDGs achievements and general human and economic development.
The other papers highlighted the Sudan progress on achieving the MDGs with an emphasis on MDG 2, 3 and 5 emphasizing the gender disparity, the challenges we face to reach the goals by 2015 with minimal budgets allocated for education, health and insufficient policies and budgets to achieve equitable women empowerment and close gender gaps.
Another three papers emphasized issues of women participation in the labor force, economic participation in rural areas and amongst the nomads and poverty challenges facing them, especially those in displaced camps who lost most of their assets and production capacities. Urban women engaging in business in the formal sector, in micro as well as medium business received attention highlighting success stories, micro finance as a channel to boost their production; moreover micro finance through rural based cooperatives as means to enhance production and employment were the focus of two main papers.
The second day highlighted the government interventions to close gender gap, achieve economic empowerment through micro finance. Reference, was made to the policies for achieving gender equality and women empowerment though adequate, projects, budgets, however practice indicate how far we are from making them achievable.
Data showing substantial gender gap in micro-finance was indicated and a holistic approach to address inclusive poverty in rural areas in the future for further projects to be implemented and funded as models in five states was highlighted by the Ministry of Social Welfare and Social Security.
Four UN agencies and bodies namely, FAO, UNFPA, WFP, UNDP and World Bank gave presentations indicating commitment to achieve women empowerment, end poverty and close gender gaps, highlighting successful programmes and projects implemented in Sudan, contributing even if with relatively limited funds to achieve the goals.
The participants of the conference deliberated on these issues discussed, focusing on answering to key issues in the working groups.
The Main Recommendations of the Groups were as follows:
• Enhancing national ownership (national leadership on development processes) of aid management and coordination
• Harmonization and coordination of gender aid interventions
• Formulation of national aid strategy with gender components
• Inclusion of aid in the budget
• Develop national capacities for aid implementation
• Develop capacities of civil society organizations to implement aid
• Strengthen synergies between government units working in aid
• Balancing the aid allocation between conflict and non conflict areas according to development and gender indicators
• Apply pressures on government to be committed to principles of democracy and to adhere to apply high level of transparency and accountability.
The Last Words of the Participants:
1. That the extent of AID received by Sudan government need to be transparent. Sudanese people need to be informed on how much, which type, where, impact and how best to promote AID partnership and effectiveness.
2. That systems of accountability, transparency, anticorruption, efficiency and effectiveness need to be integrated in all government led, or civil society, private sector and international community projects.
3. Gender budgeting, gender analysis of policies, policy development and analysis with a gender , lens are key for achieving the goals of gender mainstreaming, gender equality and women empowerment and capacity building programmes for those engaged in such activities need to be prioritized.
4. A press conference to highlight the gender gap, economic challenges Sudan face and the recommendations of this conference need to be undertaken so that these facts, challenges and recommendations reach a large number of people.
5. The papers and groups work recommendations are to be published and widely disseminated through different channels.
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