Soroptimist International is an active member of the Women’s Major Stakeholder Group for the forthcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development – Rio+20. The below statement was given at the ECOSOC on May 3rd.

Women’s Major Group Statement

United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

3 May 2012

Vice President of the Council, distinguished delegates and major group
colleagues. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Women’s
Major Group. I am Noelene Nabulivou from Fiji in the Pacific and a member of
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN).

We congratulate the Council for recognizing the vital role of civil
society toward Rio+20 and beyond, as well as providing a space for this frank
exchange of views.  Allow me to highlight four concerns given the current
state of negotiations leading up to Rio+20, which is now less than 50 days
away.

First, we agree with the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights on the imperative of a rights-based approach to poverty eradication and
sustainable development. I quote: “A human rights-based approach compels a
fuller appreciation of the political dimensions of development. Programming is
thus directed to supporting States in identifying the root causes of the
non-realization of human rights…and in addressing them.” [1]

This inter-linkage of human rights and development is critical in
crafting coherent, ambitious and rights-based policies and programs.
Accordingly, we call for a re-affirmation of the Rio Principles including the
right to development alongside global agreements to gender equality and women’s
human rights, including sexual and reproductive rights.  These rights are
enshrined in the Cairo and Beijing agreements and are essential in realising a
rights based approach to poverty eradication and sustainable development.

We also acknowledge that a central underpinning of sustainable
development is the right to education, and specifically human rights centred
lifelong learning programmes to ensure equal participation of women in all
spheres of education.  In this way sustainable practices will become
embedded in learning and action.

Second, we note with alarm the lack of multilateral and
national regulations governing transnational corporations, given their role in
the commodification of land, seas and oceans at the expense of social and
environmental agreements. Thus, we call for strong regulatory mechanisms that
will rein in transnational corporations and hold them accountable.

We call for urgent action by governments to halt dangerous marketised
technologies including geoengineering, fracking, experimental seabed mining,
black sands mining, REDD and REDD plus mechanisms [2].  These misguided
practices are deepening impoverishment, inequities and causing irreversible
environmental damage.  This manifests in increased food insecurity, soil
degradation, land alienation, and long term socio-cultural impacts on affected
communities including indigenous and migrant peoples, fisher and forest
peoples, pastoralists, and many other marginalized communities.

We urge governments to recognize alternative pathways to development
that will ensure our livelihoods, food sovereignty and protection of the
commons through appropriate institutional policies and regulatory frameworks
both international and domestic.  Only in this way will women’s work
burdens in social provisioning be relieved, especially for those living in
poverty.

Here the precautionary principle and the principle of prior informed
consent in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, are critical
to protect ecosystems.  Sustainable development must be firmly founded on
subsidiarity and self-determination for people, communities, and nations. 
Community rights over the commons must be respected and key biodiversity areas
must be protected.  This requires strong state positions against
unregulated corporate practices, unrestrained extraction and commodification of
natural resources.

Third, the institutional framework for sustainable
development must enjoy adequate means of financing and implementation, and be
informed by the Rio Principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities.  Governance of all three pillars of sustainable development
must integrate economic, social and cultural rights.  ECOSOC and it’s
subsidiary bodies can play a significant role in this by framing their
deliberations and policy recommendations within an economic, social and
cultural rights framework.  For example, Commission on the Status of Women
conclusions on financing for gender equality provided very useful analysis and
policy options but these were not integrated into the financing for development
process.  Surely ECOSOC has the mechanisms to share these insights better
across the system.

Finally, as a Pacific Islander I must call attention to
the urgency of political response in these final weeks of negotiations.  Climate change and global warming is threatening our territorial
integrity and our very existence.  This requires urgent action, above and
beyond business as usual approaches.  It is time for the highest levels of
political commitment to ensure that Rio+20 is truly groundbreaking and makes a
difference in the lives of women and girls, and their communities.

I close with the words of
young women activists organizing around the nexus of gender, economic and
ecological justice across the global South.  I quote

“We reject models based on
extractivism and current production and consumption patterns that do not
contemplate an integral vision of development … We need policies and programs
that empower communities and individuals, rather than exposing us to market
assault and the changes in climate that affect land, livelihoods, handicrafts,
indigenous medicines, staple food, symbolic wealth and our caring social
relationships that include women’s informal networks of mutual support.”  [3]  End quote.

I thank you.