In the lead up to the federal budget in May, a Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic has called on the Australian government to demonstrate political leadership in the international community and resource a gender perspective in its budgetary processes.
The Professor of Social Work and Human Services at CSU, Margaret Alston, has made the call on her return from the annual meeting of the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women where she was Australia’s non-government representative. She was selected in 2007 by the Federal government to join the Australian delegation to the Commission.
The need for a gender analysis of national, State and local level budgets and the need to assess the gendered implications of climate change on the lives of women and girls were among the conclusions of the recent meeting in New York, USA.
“The meeting agreed Governments should incorporate, as appropriate, a gender perspective into the design, development, adoption of all policies and budgetary processes,” said Professor Alston.
“This would promote ‘equitable, effective and appropriate resource allocation and establish adequate budgetary allocations to support gender equality and development programmes' that will empower women,” said the CSU academic.
Held at the UN headquarters in New York in February and March, the 52nd session of the Commission had the theme of ‘Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women’.
The first week consisted of panel presentations on financing general equality and the empowerment of women and other issues such as violence against women and gender and climate change.
“Intense negotiations dominated the second week of the meeting with debate between countries over the five proposed resolutions and the agreed conclusions for the meeting and whether they might signify advancement of women or regression,” said Professor Alston.
The five resolutions passed at the end of the conference included:
- eliminating female genital mutilation;
- freeing women and girl hostages in war zones;
- increasing women’s role in peace keeping;
- addressing the significant disadvantages being experienced by Palestinian women; and,
- addressing the significant issues for women and girls relating to HIV/AIDS.
The conclusions of the Commission meeting stressed:
- the need for countries to develop and resource institutions to address women’s issues and to ensure gender ‘mainstreaming’, eg departments for women and gender mainstreaming units;
- the need for a gender analysis of national, state and local level budgets;
- the need for gender analysis of other policies;
- the need to assess violence against women;
- the need to assess the gendered implications of climate change;
- the need to fund and resource women’s organisations; and,
- the need to have more women in decision making positions.
Professor Alston has researched widely in the field of rural social issues and is internationally recognised for her work into rural Australia.
Established in 1946, the UN Commission on the Status of Women is a committee of the UN Economic and Social Council. Further information on the agreed conclusions and resolutions of the 52nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women can be found on the Commission website.
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