Barefoot College and Microformers shine as innovative power solutions

Institutions like India's Barefoot College, which teaches women how to run and repair solar installations, and projects like Microformers, which converts old microwave ovens into transformers, show ways to generate cheap electricity in poor regions

By Pete Mercouriou | Global Envision in Christian Science Monitor | March 30, 2012

People install solar panels on the Saint-Michel health center and a fish hatchery in Boucan Carre, Haiti. The panels will provide the town with a dependable electricity supply for the first time. Only a quarter of Haiti's 10 million people has regular access to electricity. In 28 countries, Barefoot College is teaching people to harness solar power for electricity. Dieu Nalio Chery/AP/File

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Five poverty-fighting women to watch

These women don't hand out aid. They're creating innovative new ways for women – and men – to lift themselves out of poverty

By Kyla Springer | Global Envision in Christian Science Monitor | March 13, 2012

CEO and founder of Samasource Leila Janah takes part in a session during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in 2010. Samasource provides women in developing countries with 'microwork' via the Internet, reducing poverty.  Lucas Jackson/Reuters/File

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Climate Funding Needs Gender Equity

Gender considerations remain largely disregarded in existing climate funds, even though women are some of the hardest hit by the impacts of climate change on livelihoods and agriculture

Rousbeh Legatis | Inter-Press Service | Feb 29, 2012

Liane Schalatek. Credit:Courtesy of Liane Schalatek

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Without women there is no food sovereignty

Systems of food production and consumption have always been socially organized, but their organization has varied historically. In the last few decades, under the impact of neoliberal politics, the logic of capitalism has been imposed upon the ways in which food is produced and consumed (Bello, 2009)

by Esther Vivas | Feb 8 2012 by International Viewpoint in Energy Bulletin | Feb 8 2012

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Ghana: Local Women to Engage in Climate Change Decision Making

A project aimed to achieve long term impact on the promotion of women's rights and gender responsiveness of climate change policy making, mitigation and adaptation measures in Ghana has been launched in Accra

Ama A.A. Baafi and Mohammed Suleman | Public Agenda in AllAfrica.com | 9 April 2010

Dubbed "Building Capacities to Influence Climate Change Policies from a Gender Perspective," the project has among its objectives promoting women's active participation in all decision-making processes on Climate Change at all levels; and strengthening the capacity of different actors especially women and to monitor government's compliance in the implementation of Climate Change conventions to ensure that the strategies meet the specific needs and concerns of women.

Abantu for Development, a sub-regional gender and policy advocacy non-governmental organization, and Gender Action on Climate Change for Equality and Sustainability (GACCES) won the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) grant to implement the two-year project.

The launching ceremony also saw the unveiling of GACCES, a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to the promotion of women's rights and gender equality in climate change.

The project targets women and gender based institutions and networks as primary actors and beneficiaries. Other target groups are policy makers, media practitioners, chiefs and community leaders, private sector institutions and civil society organizations.

Implementers say in order to consolidate the work around gender and Climate Change, the ideas generated from the project will be shared with a broad range of actors to ensure greater commitment and action on the issues being addressed. Opportunities for expanding this initiative in the sub-region will also be explored.

Climate Change, referred to as the long-term fluctuation in precipitation, temperature, wind and all other aspects of the earth's climate, is currently considered one of the biggest challenges facing the world with 75% of greenhouse emission from developed world and Africa already vulnerable to it.

Several forums on Climate Change have deduced that the phenomenon and its impact pose a challenge to democratic sustenance as overall objective of democratic governance is to secure equitable development for society.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an estimated 35% of Ghana's land mass is desert and this is advancing at an estimated 20,000 hectare per year. Consequently, there will be loss of livelihood for most people in Ghana, since desertification reduces land available for farming activities.

Already, Ghanaian small scale farmers, particularly women in the northern parts are facing displacement from their farm lands to an influx of foreign companies engaged in jatropha and sugar-cane plantation for biofuel production.

UNICEF on the occasion of World Health Day last year cautioned that the impact of Climate Change could fall disproportionately on women and children.

In addition, women and children tend to be disproportionately affected by hurricanes and flooding, which Climate Change experts say will increase in intensity and frequency in coming years.

Last year, report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that malnutrition and associated disorders, including those relating to child growth and development, could increase as the global Climate Changes.

Reduced supplies of clean water in some areas could also add to the burden on rural women and girls, who are usually responsible for collecting water for cooking and washing.

"The voices of women and children must be heard and their needs assessed as part of the international response to prospective changes to the environment, and they must have access to the knowledge and tools necessary to protect themselves and their communities", said Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF.

Speaking at the launching ceremony in Accra, Dr. Agnes Akosua Aidoo, Vice Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in reference to a UNDP Human Development report stated that Climate Change could maximize existing impact on marginalized women especially in developing countries.

She noted that the impact threatens human security, exacerbates conflicts and causes forced migration. "Women and men are affected by Climate Change differently. Though significant progress in terms of women equality, women continue to form majority of the poor and face inequality in land rights, decision making power etc."

These historical deficits, according to Dr. Aidoo, make women and girls vulnerable such that women in rural areas are doubly challenged by Climate Change. She, however, said at the same time it must be acknowledged that women are vital agents of change. "They have their own vision of a better world in Climate Change and must be heard as critical to sustainability".

She stressed the need to create awareness on gender specific impacts of Climate Change in the rural and urban context, women and girls and men and boys. She called for the support of all and sundry, particularly media to make gender needs of Climate Change a reality.

Convenor of GACCES, Ms Patience Damptey, said Climate Change is already happening and could put pressure on developing countries as they feel multiple disadvantages in areas such as gendered poverty, unequal access to resources, food insecurity and diseases, although they are not directly responsible for generating these damaging greenhouse gases.

"Climate Change is a major gender issue, given the unequal social relationships that characterize experiences, negotiations and impacts in the different regions and communities. As such it is important that women?s rights organizations continue to engage with the process to get additional language on issues of finance and technology."

In his key note address, the Deputy Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, Dr. Omane Boamah, corroborated the point that the effects of Climate Change are differentiated.

He cautioned that it was important to focus on issues such as biodiversity, desertification and drought or else though Ghana would achieve some feat of a sort the country would be required to come back.

Dr. Boamah mentioned the National Forest Plantation Development Programme and the Coastal Zone Development Programme as some of government's effort to combat desertification.

He asked civil society, media and development partners, among others, to collaborate with government since it cannot solely address the issue of Climate Change.

Copyright © 2010 Public Agenda. All rights reserved

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Women’s Rights, Population and Climate Change: The Debate Continues

Should climate activists and feminists support campaigns to slow population growth? Laurie Mazur says that alliance will strengthen the movement. Ian Angus strongly disagrees

Climate and Capitalism | March 7, 2010

Introduction

Climate and Capitalism recently published a debate between Betsy Hartmann and Laurie Mazur about campaigns that promote family planning and reproductive health programs as means of slowing population growth and fighting global warming.

We subsequently published a reply to Laurie Mazur in which Ian Angus argued that “The combination of population reduction and women’s rights was already like oil and water. Adding CO2 reductions to the mix only makes things worse.”

This post continues the debate, with new articles by Laurie Mazur and Ian Angus. We encourage readers to join the discussion, using the Comments feature at the bottom of this page.

• Laurie Mazur is director of the Population Justice Project. Her book, A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge, was published this year by Island Press.
• Ian Angus is editor of Climate and Capitalism. His book, The Global Fight for Climate Justice: Anticapitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environmental Destruction, is published in North America by Fernwood Publishing, and in Europe by Resistance Books.

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THE WORLD NEEDS POPULATION JUSTICE

A Reply to Ian Angus

by Laurie Mazur

First, may I suggest that you read my book? With chapters by leading thinkers from the environmental, women’s rights and social justice movements — including Walden Bello, Carmen Barroso, Gordon McGranahan and many others — it offers a wealth of perspectives on the intersection of population dynamics, capitalism and environmental quality.

You and I have many areas of agreement. Most importantly, we agree that capitalism is the driving force behind ecological devastation today. I do not “blame poor women’s fertility for environmental problems.” I argue that consumption in the affluent countries, and — more broadly—globalized, “free market” capitalism, is at the root of the problem. However, I don’t believe that human numbers are irrelevant; slower population growth could make environmental problems easier to solve. Moreover, the best means to slow population growth are all important ends in themselves.

Population, capitalism and carrying capacity

“People are not the cause of ecological devastation,” you write in response to one of the comments on your post. “Capitalism is.”

Must we characterize the problem as either “too many people” or capitalism? In my book, I attempt to show that it is not an either-or. The Marxists and the “populationists,” as you call them, each have valid points. The Marxists are right that capitalism is driving unprecedented and unsustainable environmental destruction. The populationists are right to be concerned about the carrying capacity of ecosystems and of the planet in general.

The limits of carrying capacity are excruciatingly difficult to discern, because resources are distributed so inequitably and used so wastefully. But that does not mean such limits do not exist. And I don’t have to tell you that, for many ecosystems, those limits are near — or have already been surpassed.

There is no single magic bullet that will get us out of the environmental mess we are in. I agree with Wendy, who writes that, “To reverse the ecological and social meltdown facing us we need to address every aspect of humanity’s massive assault upon the earth’s resources.” That means weaning ourselves from fossil fuels and cultivating sustainable energy and agriculture. It means replacing the capitalist imperatives of growth and accumulation with a new ethic of justice and sufficiency. And it means doing so against a backdrop of irreversible environmental damage: climate change, species extinction, and resource depletion. I believe these monumental challenges would be easier to surmount with a world population of eight billion, rather than 11 billion.

You take me to task for asserting that:

“The affluent countries can reduce emissions by reducing the vast amounts of waste in our systems of production and consumption. But the developing countries are not likely to raise their standards of living without more intensive use of resources and higher emissions.”

Now, the first part of my statement is hard to argue with. The second part is subject to legitimate debate, which you elude by suggesting that poor people trying to get out of poverty can use “low-emission technologies.” But what are the technologies that will enable everyone on earth to live a decent quality of life without vastly increasing carbon emissions?

There are 6.8 billion people on the planet today, and demographic projections say we’ll get to anywhere from 8 billion to 11 billion by 2050. Let’s use 9 billion, the UN’s medium projection — though it’s far from a sure bet.

Now let’s look at per capita CO2, an imperfect but still useful proxy for other greenhouse gas emissions, and for environmental impact generally. As you know, Americans emit more CO2 per capita than anyone on earth–about 20 tons per person, per year. Europeans emit about half that, and most sub-Saharan Africans come in at a ton or less. Let’s say the US was able to cut its emissions by three quarters, and Europeans cut theirs in half. While we’re at it, let’s have a massive redistribution of wealth and technology, which enables everyone on earth to converge at an emissions level of 5 tons per person, per year — about the level of Mexico today.

Even in this fantastically rosy scenario, with a population of 9 billion and per capita emissions of 5 tons per person, global carbon dioxide emissions would rise to 45 billion tons of CO2 per year — a 50% increase over our current, ruinous level.

In our equitable world scenario, the difference between a world population of 8 billion and one of 11 billion would be about 15 billion tons of CO2 per year — half our current emissions and quite possibly the margin between a manageable climate crisis and catastrophe. In an equitable world,population matters. In fact, the only scenario in which population doesn’tmatter (much) is one where the current inequitable divide between rich and poor remains fixed for all time.

A means or an end?

So, yes, I believe that a world population of 8 billion would be better than 11 billion. But I would not have embarked on this project if I thought that the only way to get to 8 billion was by coercing poor women to have fewer children. In fact, as I’ve said, the best means to slow population growth — universal access to family planning and other reproductive health services, educating girls and empowering women, and promoting sustainable, equitable development–are all vitally important ends in and of themselves.

You rightly decry the abuses committed in the name of population control. Half a century ago, general panic about the “population bomb” helped launch the international family planning movement. That movement brought contraception to millions in the developing world, where family planning usage rates grew from less than 10% in the early 1960s to more than 60% today. But it also committed horrible abuses, notably in India and China (where abuses persist today). That, in turn, sparked a revolution in reproductive health, as pioneering feminists essentially took over the family planning movement from within. (Michelle Goldberg tells their story beautifully in The Means of Reproduction.)

Also, in the 1990s, demographers made a game-changing realization: you don’t need to control anyone to slow population growth. Survey data showed that most women in the developing world were having more children than they said they want. So, simply addressing this “unmet need” – by providing reproductive health services that enable women to realize their own fertility goals – would decrease birthrates by as much, or more, than was called for in most countries’ demographic targets.

This shift in thinking enabled feminists and “populationists” to make common cause at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, in Cairo. You characterize this alliance as a marriage of convenience aimed at defeating the Vatican. But there’s a more important piece of the story: feminists and populationists joined forces because their interests were aligned. If the best way to slow population growth is by ensuring reproductive rights and empowering women, then this is a win-win for both groups. Populationists didn’t just learn “to hide their views behind feminist vocabulary,” as you assert, many (though admittedly not all) truly came to realize that the feminists’ goals were central to their own.

And you fail to appreciate the significance of the Cairo conference, which brought together thousands of women from North and South, and launched a new, rights-based approach to population issues. Academic feminists like Betsy Hartmann sat on the sidelines and criticized the Cairo agreement for not being radical enough, but activist feminists from all over the world embraced it as a groundbreaking affirmation of women’s rights.

The Cairo agenda has not been fully implemented; patriarchy may prove even hardier than capitalism. But it brought real changes in the way family planning programs are run. It is now widely accepted that those programs should be designed to meet the reproductive health needs of their clients, full stop. No more demographic targets. No more rewards for providers who get the most “contraceptive acceptors.” We have a long way to go to make Cairo a reality, and we must always remain vigilant against coercion of any kind, but Cairo produced a seismic shift in the population/family planning movement.

Still, an important question remains: Can family planning programs adhere to Cairo principles if their funding comes from donors who are concerned about population growth? Is it essential that rights-based family planning programs be seen as an end in themselves, or can they also be seen as the means to an end — of slowing population growth? These are legitimate questions that have sparked lively debate in our field.

And there are divergent answers to these questions, even among card-carrying feminists. Some, especially academic feminists like Hartmann, say no. For them, ideological purity is essential; any hint of instrumentality will fatally compromise delivery of reproductive health services.

For others, including many of the women who have devoted their lives to delivering reproductive health care to women in the developing world, who deal on a daily basis with staggering need and woefully inadequate resources — the answer is yes. Those women have worked to increase the resources available for reproductive health–which sometimes means forming alliances with people who are concerned about population growth, national security, the environment and other issues — and they have fought like hell to make those programs as responsive to their clients’ needs as they can be.

You can probably tell which side I’m on. But there is a potential middle ground. Frances Kissling, the founder of Catholics for Choice, seeks to resolve this conflict in a terrific chapter in my book, called “Reconciling Differences.” She concludes, and I agree, that we must make room for both approaches:

“I would suggest that for one set of organizations, whose central goal is achieving women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, there is no reason to include environmentalism or population stabilization advocacy in their agenda. In fact, there are good reasons to avoid these issues. The social transformation needed for women’s reproductive rights to be fully accepted as fundamental human rights is in process, but it is not complete. Some groups must continue to work singlemindedly for that transformation in culture and politics by insisting that women’s rights are an end in themselves and not a means to a better life for children, men and society at large….

“At the same time, there is no need for [sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)] groups to attempt to prohibit all organizations from making links between population, environment, development and reproductive health or to offer blanket public criticism of such efforts as unethical or unfounded. We have become extremely sensitive to the efforts of the right to ignore or subvert evidence and science in service of ideology. We would fall prey to the same dishonesty were we to insist that these links cannot be explored. And to claim that they do not exist at all would be intellectually dishonest.”

Population justice — it’s not just about family planning

Population justice was inspired by the reproductive justice movement, which asks us to examine the inequities of race and class that limit reproductive choice. For example, the legal right to an abortion means little to a woman who can’t afford one. Similarly, the population justice framework looks at the inequities — both economic and gender — that constrain people’s decisions about childbearing and drive rapid population growth.

Several posters have noted the connection between capitalism and population growth. The capitalist growth imperative underlies pronatalist policies that seek to ensure an ever-expanding supply of workers and consumers. At the same time, rapid population growth is a byproduct of the inequity produced by our current economic system. High fertility correlates perfectly with poverty; the poorest families in the poorest countries have the highest fertility rates.

Poverty is a cause of high fertility — where child mortality rates are high and social safety nets are nonexistent, people will have many children to ensure that some survive and to help support parents in their old age. But the reverse is also true — high fertility can exacerbate poverty. More children can mean less food, education and healthcare to go around, perpetuating a cycle of poverty. The best way to break the cycle is to address poverty with equitable development that reduces the need for large families and to make sure that people have the services and information they need to make their own decisions about childbearing.

Gender inequality is also a powerful driver of high fertility. In many parts of the world, girls and women have no alternative to early marriage and frequent childbearing. What does reproductive choice mean to an 11 year-old girl who is married against her will, whose sexual initiation is indistinguishable from rape, and who begins childbearing before her pelvis is fully formed, at great risk to her life and health?

Of course, the core problem is patriarchy, but while we’re working to overturn that, two interventions have been shown to make a dramatic difference in the lives of girls and women: education and reproductive health. Girls’ education subverts patriarchy by increasing the economic value of women’s work outside the home. Reproductive health saves women’s lives: Universal access to family planning and reproductive health services would reduce 70% of maternal deaths worldwide, and nearly half of newborn deaths. And, by enabling women to plan and space childbearing, reproductive health services improve women’s health, educational status and economic well-being. Asoka Bandarage is correct that women’s rights can’t be reduced to reproductive rights, but reproductive rights are a cornerstone of self-determination. Just try exercising your “rights” without being able to control whether you are pregnant.

So, yes, the Population Justice Project calls for universal access to high quality family planning and reproductive health services. But we it’s not just about family planning; we also advocate for girls’ education and women’s empowerment, and for sustainable and equitable development.

Why Third World Women?

You ask why my work emphasizes the fertility of the poorest women in the world. “Shouldn’t Mazur’s group emphasize population reduction in rich countries,” you ask, “where each avoided birth will have a greater effect than dozens in the global South?”

First, I do not advocate “population reduction” anywhere in the world. Barring some catastrophic increase in mortality, world population won’t be reduced anytime soon. Instead I advocate slowing population growth by making sure that all people — North and South–have the means and the power to make their own decisions about childbearing. This ideal has yet to be fully realized anywhere in the world, but it remains most elusive for poor women in the global South. That’s why I focus on their needs.

Of course, dealing with emissions in the affluent countries is job number one if we are to address climate change. But if the goal is to reduce emissions in the US, say, reducing fertility is not the low-hanging fruit. Our fertility rate is already at 2.1 — replacement level. That’s why the conversation about slowing population growth in the US turns very quickly to an ugly attack on immigration. The fundamental problem is that the US, with just 5% of the world’s population, devours 25% of its resources. Closing the border and targeting immigrants won’t change that.

Don’t give this issue to the Right

Here’s my final point. The population issue isn’t going away. It keeps coming up because we are staring into the abyss and because political efforts to avert disaster are floundering. It keeps coming up because some people are drawn to simplistic answers to complex problems. And it keeps coming up because there is a connection between population growth and environmental devastation, and because slowing population growth is one of many, many things we must do to save ourselves.

Lately, it’s coming up a lot. Jonathon Porritt, the British environmental advisor, set off a firestorm last year when he said it was “irresponsible” for British couples to have more than two children. In The World Without Us, environmental journalist Alan Weissman calls for a global “one child per human mother policy.”

These and many others would take us straight back to “population control.” At the other end of the spectrum, people like you and Betsy Hartmann have declared population growth an untouchable issue. But here’s the problem: if there is no left/progressive voice on this issue, environmentalists and others who are legitimately concerned about population growth will be driven into the arms of the neo-Malthusians.

I propose a third option. Let’s have a real conversation about population growth that embraces the insights of Marxists, feminists, environmentalists and demographers. Let’s explore the issue with nuance and honesty. And let’s try to parlay the new interest in human numbers into renewed commitment to the Cairo agenda — and to reproductive rights, health and justice for all.

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BAD SCIENCE AND DANGEROUS POLICIES

A Reply to Laurie Mazur

by Ian Angus

Thank you for your reply. Open and frank debate can only strengthen the fight for progressive change.

As you say, we have many areas of agreement. In particular, we both believe that women everywhere should have the right to choose if, when and how often to have children, without any form of coercion. We agree that to ensure the right to choose, high quality health services should be universally available.

But we disagree profoundly about your efforts to link that objective to a campaign for slower population growth. Your website makes your approach clear: “By making sure that all people are able to make real choices about childbearing, we can slow population growth and reduce human impact on the environment.” In my opinion, connecting those issues undermines both women’s rights and the fight against climate change.

That connection would only be appropriate if:

• “Too many people” is a valid explanation for ecological problems in general and climate change in particular;
  and,
• Linking reproductive health to population/environment issues doesn’t undermine women’s rights.

This article first addresses those two questionable assumptions, then considers your argument that progressives must support slower population growth in order to prevent the right from monopolizing the issue.

Is overpopulation the problem?

I have indeed read your book, and as I did so, I was struck by the contrast between the lobbyists and partisans who assert confidently that population growth is an urgent issue, and the actual scientists, who are far more cautious.

For example, Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at the Rockefeller University and Columbia University, poses a dozen questions, all related to the nature of our social order, that must be addressed by anyone who tries to “quantify human carrying capacity or a sustainable human population size.” He concludes:

“Because no estimates of human carrying capacity have explicitly addressed the questions raised above, taking into account the diversity of views about their answers in different societies and cultures, no scientific estimates of sustainable human population size can be said to exist.” ( p. 34. emphasis added)

If that’s the case, then there is no science behind calls for “optimum population” or even “slower growth.” Before we deal with numbers, we must resolve a host of social and economic questions, in theory and in practice.

Brian O’Neill, who also has an article in your book, is one of the very few climate scientists who has actually studied correlations between population size and greenhouse gas emissions. He concludes that “slowing population growth could make a contribution to solving the climate-change problem,” but he carefully qualifies even that limited conclusion. Some examples:

“while population size is a driver of greenhouse gas emissions, it is not necessarily the most important driver. Increases in GDP also were found to have a roughly proportional effect on emissions, and technology effects were equally important.” (p. 84)

“slower population growth alone is no guarantee of lower emissions; other factors, notably energy use, can easily outweigh the positive impact of slower growth.” (p. 86)

“In general, lower population growth is associated with — but cannot guarantee — lower emissions.” (p. 90)

What’s more, he concludes that slower population growth will have little effect on emissions until the second half of the century. It’s hard to see that as a justification for putting population at the top of an activist agenda today. As you write in your Introduction, “we have less than a decade left to head off catastrophic climate change.”

The weakness of O’Neill’s conclusions is particularly noteworthy because his computer modeling approach “employs a neoclassical economic growth model, the PET (population-environment-technology) model, of the type that is commonly used in the energy and emissions scenario field.” (p. 87)

Translation: his models assume that capitalist economic growth will continue unabated and they assume that population growth is a driver of that growth. They exclude any possibility of significant social and economic change. Since his economic assumptions embody the very populationist ideas he’s supposed to be testing, the only surprising thing about his conclusions is that they are so weak.

One day, when we have broad agreement on the answers to all of Joel Cohen’s questions, and when we have eliminated the gross waste, destruction and inequities of capitalism, we may be able to measure the earth’s carrying capacity scientifically. If so, humanity may then decide to consciously limit its numbers. Since the birth rate is already below replacement levels in much of the world, that probably won’t be a difficult task.

But today, science provides no support for a populationist program.

Allying with the population establishment

You write that at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, “feminists and populationists joined forces because their interests were aligned. If the best way to slow population growth is by ensuring reproductive rights and empowering women, then this is a win-win for both groups.”

You charge that “academic feminists like Betsy Hartmann … sat on the sidelines criticized the Cairo agreement for not being radical enough,” while “activist feminists from all over the world embraced it as a groundbreaking affirmation of women’s rights.”

In addition to being a cheap shot – Betsy Hartmann’s credentials as a feminist activist need no defense – that’s also a gross oversimplification of the debate. Far from being a conflict between activists and ultraleft abstentionists, it is a debate over whether allying with the population establishment helps or harms the movement for women’s right to choose.

That question was central to my previous article, but instead of replying, you attack a straw woman: “Some, especially academic feminists like Hartmann, say no. For them, ideological purity is essential; any hint of instrumentality will fatally compromise delivery of reproductive health services.”

But the debate has never been about “ideological purity” – it’s aboutpractical results and coercion. The population establishment isn’t a neutral force: it has a specific political agenda, and when it provides funds, it wants to see results. As Amara Perez writes in her contribution to the evocatively-title book The Revolution Will Not Be Funded:

“The reality is foundations are ultimately interested in the packaging and production of success stories, measurable outcomes, and the use of infrastructure and capacity-building systems. As non-profit organizations that rely on foundation money, we must embrace and engage in the organizing market. This resembles a business model in that the consumers are foundations to which organizations offer to sell their political work for a grant. … Over time, funding trends actually come to influence our work, priorities, and direction as we struggle to remain competitive and funded in the movement market.” (pp. 92-3)

This is not an abstract issue. Family planning programs that raise government and foundation money by promising to reduce the birth rate will face demands for measurable results – and those that want to keep their grants will find themselves pressured to shift from offering reproductive choices to pressuring women to make the “right” choices.

As I pointed out in my previous reply to you, experience with family planning in Third World countries shows that programs motivated by a desire to cut population tend to use coercive measures, regardless of the desires of their supporters. I cited James Oldham’s study of Reproductive Health/Family Planning (RH/FP) programs in Africa and Latin America, which concludes:

“When NGOs arrive with predetermined agendas, the danger is that these will be imposed on local communities. As long as a Malthusian narrative is part of the program vision, such a narrative is likely to be communicated to, and potentially imposed upon, target communities. …

“Organizations promoting the funding and provision of RH/FP services in the global south should refrain from using environmental and population arguments to promote their goals. The distortions of Malthusian arguments cannot be justified simply because they are effective in winning partners or funding; they need to be replaced with rights-based arguments in favor of making RH/FP available to all women.” (Rethinking the Link: A Critical Review of Population-Environment Programs. pp. 3, 5)

In your own book, Susana Chavez Alvarado and Jacqueline Nolley Echegaray describe how a supposedly voluntary program to slow population growth in Peru in the late 1990s led to the involuntary sterilization of hundreds of thousands of indigenous women. Like Oldham, they conclude that the first lesson of that experience is that “human rights abuses are likely where reproductive health services are seen as a means to an end, rather than as an end in themselves.” (p. 298.)

I repeat what I wrote previously: That’s an important lesson for anyone who considers promoting family planning as a way to reduce population and greenhouse gas emissions.

Leaving population to the right?

You conclude with an appeal: “Don’t give this issue to the right.”

“people like you and Betsy Hartmann have declared population growth an untouchable issue. But here’s the problem: if there is no left/progressive voice on this issue, environmentalists and others who are legitimately concerned about population growth will be driven into the arms of the neo-Malthusians.”

But the real danger is that liberal environmentalists and feminists will strengthen the right by lending credibility to reactionary arguments. When you adopt the argument that population growth causes global warming, you endorse the strongest argument the right has against the social and economic changes that are really needed to stop climate change and environmental destruction.

What’s more, no matter how sincere you may be, promoting birth control as a means of slowing climate change opens the door to the very coercive measures you oppose. If we only have a decade to stop climate change, shouldn’t we be reducing population drastically right now? How can we justify voluntary programs that won’t be effective for decades?

The “don’t give this issue to the right” argument is a slippery slope. Simon Butler and I recently wrote an article for the Australian newspaper Green Left Weekly, opposing proposals by some environmentalists to limit immigration. A reader responded that our opposition to restrictions on immigration “isolates the left from the majority, and leaves the door wide open for right-wing organizations to tap into their discontent.”

If “don’t leave it to the right” were a valid argument, then neither you nor we would have an effective response to that. But since we don’t think that progressives should try to win support by using right wing arguments, we replied: “Immigration is only one of many issues on which socialists are a minority in Australia today. We deal with this not by abandoning our principles, but by working hard to win the majority to our side.”

The same response applies to your “don’t leave it to the right” argument. If environmentalists and others believe that population growth is causing climate change, then our responsibility is to show them why that’s wrong, not to adapt to their errors.

(My thanks to Simon Butler for his advice and comments on this article.)

Copyright © 2007 Climate and Capitalism

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Dealing with climate change demands a more gendered approach

Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for all -- with this very theme, the women of the world will be observing International Women's Day 2010

Rezina Sultana | The Financial Express | March 7 2010

The major concern of the present world is climate change and environmental degradation. In fact, involving women inprotecting the environmentwould help societies develop the sense of responsibility needed to maintain a good balance between humans and the earth's resources.

Environmental degradation, however, is a result of the dynamic interplay of socio-economic, institutional and technological activities. Environmental changes may be driven by many factors including economic growth, population growth, urbanization, intensification of agriculture, rising energy use and transportation. Poverty still remains a problem at the root of several environmental problems.

Idiatou Camara, Guinea's National Environment Director, one of four environmental protection experts exchanging views with the Commission on the theme of the gender perspective in environmental management and disaster mitigation, said: "Women need to participate at the national level and get their countries to empower women in regions unable to afford protection activities. They must encourage democratization and discourage the economic oppression that led to massive population movements degrading the environment. They must mobilize to reverse the poverty which excluded the poor from protecting the environment because limited knowledge and technical ability prevented them from addressing problems."

Marie Yolene Surena, Director, Civil Protection, Ministry of Interior of Haiti, said, "Investing in women for roles in environmental risk management was not only beneficial, but profitable. Managing environmental risk was part of the development process, while managing disasters now is a drain on development funds. The priorities must be to develop human resources, change laws, address food security and slow population increases."

Women's role after Haiti disaster: When Haitian commercial banks remained closed after the terrible effect of the earthquake, Fonkoze, the Haitian branch of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, mobilized over one weekend to get funds to its members in rural towns as well as Port-au-Prince. Between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m., on January 23, 2010 Fonkoze brought in 2.0 million dollars in cash from their US bank and distributed it by helicopters to regional offices in the most remote parts of the country.

Fonkoze has been operating in Haiti for 15 years. Ninety-nine per cent of its members are women. In addition to micro-lending programmes, Fonkoze sponsors major literacy, health care and micro-insurance programmes. Its remittances and savings accounts serve more than 200,000 people, making it a significant part of the country's financial system.

It isn't the first time that a micro-lending network of mostly women has taken a lead role in helping rebuild a country's economy after a natural disaster. In Poland, after a devastating flood in the mid-1990s, the US-backed Fundusz Mikro became the conduit for credit to small businesses, ultimately funnelling more than US$10 million to rebuild when the central government proved inept and also tone-deaf to the challenge.

Salving Briceno, Director, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, said economic losses due to natural disasters had increased nearly ten-fold during the past four decades. In some cases, as in Afghanistan now, persistent drought was amplifying man-made emergencies. Numerous elements of a comprehensive and sustained policy for hazard awareness and disaster reduction should be looked at from a gender perspective. Balanced and equal participation of men and women informulating and implementing policies and programmes was essential.

The case of Bangladesh: The problems of women and environmental degradation have recently been addressed by women's groups. NGOs have been the most active, with 600 registered organizations. Among these 40 per cent were international, 38 per cent national, and 22 per cent local. NGOs have promoted the recent inclusion of environmental concerns into development plans.

The data shows about 100 NGOs are engaged in forestry projects. The National Association for Resource Improvement, for example, involves women in tree planting along roadsides and income-generating activities. About 75 per cent of upazilas (sub-districts) have environmental and women's projects, but fewer than 20 per cent of all villages are affected and 1.0 per cent landless people are reached.

In fact, women's groups have created awareness on women's problems and advocated for socio-economic changes. Women, despite cultural and social restrictions imposed on them, have changed environmental and economic conditions. Women's leadership and organizing abilities have contributed to public awareness of environmental degradation. Because Bangladesh is a delta, a rise in sea level from greenhouse effects would have serious consequences for the land and population.

Global warming has contributed to river flooding and climate changes that have increased rainfall and tropical storms. Deforestation upriver adds to the water overflow problems. About 20 per cent of the cultivable land area is affected by natural disasters. Population density is 760 persons per sq km. About 50 per cent of forested areas have been destroyed within the past 20 years. Around 4.0 per cent of gross domestic product comes from forest activity. The lack of wood fuel limits the ability of people to boil water and contributes to the increased incidence of diarrhoea, other intestinal problems, and less nutritious food.

Drought is another problem. Urban migration has overwhelmed the ability of urban centres to provide basic services. Coastal areas have been settled by 20 per cent of total population, but coastal storms regularly impact on people's lives and livelihoods.

The different roles and responsibilities of women and men in water resources use and management are closely linked to environmental change and well-being. This is true both for how women and men affect the environmentthrough their economic and household activities and how the resulting environmental changes affect people's well-being. Understanding these gender differences is an essential part of developing policies aimed at both better environmental outcomes and improved health and well-being.

Women play a critical role in the field of environment, especially in the management of plants and animals in forests, arid areas and wetlands. Ruralwomen in particular maintain an intimate interaction with natural resources, the collection and production of food products.

As their knowledge is transmitted through generations, girls and women often acquire a thorough understanding of their environment, and more specifically of its biodiversity. Their experience gives them valuable skills required for the management of the environment. Women have an important role to play in preserving the environment and in managing natural resources to achieve ecologically sustainable production (UNEP, 2004).

Despite women's assumed special relations to nature it should be stressed that all people depend on the environment and all should share the responsibility for sustainable use of water and other natural resources.

The impacts of the degradation of the environment on people's everyday lives are not the same for men and women. When the environment is degraded, women's day-to-day activities, such as fuel and water collection, require more time, leaving less time for productive activities. When water becomes scarce, women and children in rural areas must walk longer distances to find water, and in urban areas are required to wait in line for long hours at communal water points.

Despite their efforts, women living in arid areas tend to be categorized among the poorest of the poor, and have absolutely no means to influence real change. They are often excluded from participating in land development and conservation projects, agricultural extension activities, and policies directly affecting their subsistence. Men make most decisions related to cattle and livestock, and even in households headed by women, men still intervene in the decision-making process through members of the extended family. However, because of the important contribution of women, the fight against the degradation of arid areas requires a gender-inclusive approach.

In conclusion, we may say that women's status in conserving biodiversity may be enhanced through the following types of actions to integrate gender concerns into environmental planning:

• Improve data collection on women's and men's resource use, knowledge of, access to and control over resources. Collecting sex-disaggregated information is a first step towards developing gender-responsive policies and programmes.
• Train staff and management on the relevance of gender issues to water resources and environmental outcomes.
• Establish procedures for incorporating a gender perspective in planning, monitoring, and evaluating environmental projects.
• Ensure opportunities for women to participate in decisions about environmental policies and programmes at all levels, including as designers, planners, implementers, and evaluators.
• Foster commitment at all levels -- local, national, and international -- to integrate gender concerns into policies and programmes which will lead to more equitable and sustainable development.
• Incorporate a gender perspective into national environmental policies, through a gender policy declaration that demonstrates the government's commitment.

So, it is evident that the gender perspective should feature strongly in all our development efforts, especially in dealing with the adverse affects of climate change and environmental degradation, where women have equal stakes as men, if not more.

The writer works as a general training manager in Bangla CAT and teaches part time at Dhaka University

© The Financial Express 2009

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Gender Equality Stressed at Conference on Eliminating Food Insecurity

Food insecurity in Africa is a massive and multifaceted problem that experts have been trying to solve for years. One common theme that has emerged in the dialogue about African hunger is the role empowering women can play in increasing food security. Women in Africa often have trouble gaining access to credit, legal rights to own land, and knowledge about farming techniques and innovations that thereby limit their ability to profit from agriculture

Rebekah Mintzer | MediaGlobal in AllAfrica.com | 2 March 2010

"Women contribute tremendously to food security and agriculture; according to some sources, as much as 70 percent of the labor in agriculture is contributed by women. Yet, they face many constraints in their quest to produce food and making a living out of agriculture..." Joan Kagwanja, policy officer for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) told MediaGlobal.

This idea was a major topic of discussion at a 17 February conference on food security in East Africa. Experts and stakeholders from all over the continent met in Nairobi, Kenya to share up-to-date information about mitigating African hunger. Winrock International, a development assistance group based in the United States organized the conference, titled "A 21st Century Framework for Food Security in Africa."

One of the basic problems that women face in Africa is legal inequity with men. This translates into decreased ability to own and farm land and to fight for land rights within court systems. AGRA was tasked with discussing land policy and its effect on food insecurity at the conference.

"Land is a key determinant to food security -- particular, secure land rights and access to land are critical inputs to improving agricultural productivity and facilitating medium to long-term investments that improve soil health, ensure environmental sustainability, and indeed build agricultural resilience to climate change," Kagwanja said. She went on to explain why in the largely patriarchal societies of Africa, women often lose their land when men leave or are killed in conflicts. "Their rights are insecure in the sense that when these relationships [with male family members] are weak or no longer exist, their rights may cease. This scenario is prevalent in both customary and statutory systems of land governance, obviously affecting agricultural production and food security."

Such institutionalized dependency on men for economic security leaves women and often their children in a precarious condition because if women cannot own the land they farm they can easily be left destitute.

Another problem for African women is their lack of access to credit, preventing them from getting obtaining the capital needed to start farming. Without loans, women often lack the funds for agricultural inputs, like crops, equipment, and fertilizer.

Women's lack of access to farming extension programs and education about agricultural techniques also puts them at a major disadvantage and prevents them from producing food and income. According to the World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, published by the United Nations in 2009: "Agricultural extension services which include advisory services, information and training, and access to production inputs such as seeds and fertilizers are critical for increasing the productivity of farm activities. Despite their critical roles in agriculture, women farmers have largely been ignored by extension services in many areas."

One of the more salient approaches to alleviating food insecurity through women discussed at the conference was a focus on assisting households as units rather than simply as individuals. Dawne Deppe of Winrock International, who played a large role in organizing the conference told MediaGlobal in an email: "Gender equality is vital for the improvement of food security, [and it] might be best-faced through 'household leadership' awareness and training models, to bring the developments over the last decade in policy, technology, communication, education into the daily lives of families - whether family members are house-bound or not -- and reinvigorating and repackaging the traditional strengths of the African family and community." Such an approach provides whole families, both males and females, with agricultural skills, knowledge, and training, helping to level the playing field for women while benefiting everyone.

Did you find this article beneficial? If so, please help MediaGlobal continue to provide you with development news from around the world by making a donation to support our operations.

Copyright © 2010 MediaGlobal. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)

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INDIA: Most Live Donors Are Wives or Mothers

By Sujata B. Shakeel | IPS Inter Press Service | Sep 24, 2009

Here's a statistic that reveals the truth about gender relations in India.

Dr Sandeep Guleria: "It is very rare for a husband to donate a kidney to his wife."  Credit:Rahul/IPS

Of the roughly 4,000 kidney transplants performed across the country in a year, about 80 percent of donors are women, with wives making up more than 90 percent of spousal donations.

Significantly, 80 percent of beneficiaries are men. "There is gender bias," declares Sandeep Guleria, assistant professor at India's most prestigious government hospital, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi. "Love is sharing kidneys, but it is very rare for a husband to donate a kidney to his wife."

Anju Babuta, 33, had given up on life. Born with a shrunken left kidney, she was put on a dialysis after the second kidney was damaged during pregnancy. In 2006, the doctors told her her only hope was a kidney transplant.

Still she went on, with the dialysis and her work in an office in Tees Hazari, Delhi's lower courts, praying and hoping her husband, whose blood group matched hers, would keep his promise and donate a kidney to her. But he didn't. When it came to the crunch it was a cadaver that saved her life: a 14 year old whose family decided to donate his organs.

Babuta says her husband's reason was, "there has to be one strong (healthy) person in the family." Wives, however, groomed from childhood to be self-less and serve their husbands and families seem to think nothing about donating a kidney.

Take Vimlesh, 46-year-old homemaker from a small town in Uttar Pradesh state in north India. In 2008, she donated a kidney to her son, Ashok Kumar, an economics postgraduate. Vimlesh had lost a daughter to renal failure. She didn't want to take a chance with her son. "I'm happy to have given him a kidney. I want him to live and do well in life," she says.

"Women never think twice when it comes to making a sacrifice for their husband or their son. The same cannot be said for the man in the family. There is always a subtle social pressure on her to donate the organ, which she does willingly, unquestioningly, almost like it is her bounden duty to do so," observes Dr Guleria, who is also consultant surgeon in the general surgery and transplantation department of AIIMS.

A report in the British Medical Journal (Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy) says "the predominance of women donors (must) be investigated urgently." It adds: "Instead of simply congratulating women on their altruism there was a need to ask about possible reasons for the existing gender imbalance and check it for matters of fairness and undue pressure on a vulnerable group."

According to the report, "the expansion of living organ donation has been accompanied by an increasing gender imbalance among donors", while attributing the cause to "economic, attitudinal or psychological factors".

Smriti Singh, 36, a former sprinter who ran for her state Bihar, and now a home-maker in Delhi, considers herself lucky. When she needed a transplant, her unmarried sister volunteered to be a live and related donor because "she loves me and her nephew too much," she says.

"We try to convince the husband to come forward and donate, but most often than not there is a pressure on him not to do so as he is the earning member of the family," says Dr Harsha Jauhari, chairman, kidney transplant surgery, department of nephrology, Sir Gangaram Hospital, one of Delhi's top private hospitals.

With growing incidence of lifestyle diseases, like diabetes, obesity and hypertension, one in every 10 urban Indian, mostly male, suffer from a kidney related problem.

A study by Munita Bal and B. Saikia of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, for the period 2001-05, found a whopping 90 percent of wives were live donors for their husbands as opposed to only 9 percent men. Similar studies conducted in Germany, Canada, U.K., U.S. and Sweden showed comparable trends.

According to Dr Guleria, the number of female donors has shot up since 1995. "Before (that) the wife was not considered a legal organ donor. But after the passing of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, which authorised us to use the wife as a legal donor, we have seen a sudden increase in the number of spousal donations," he says.

There are more telling figures. In the case of 64 percent of male kidney transplant cases in India, the donor is female, while only 8 percent of men donate to women. About 20 percent of donations are male to male; 8 percent female to female. For every five men who receive a kidney only two women get one; and for every five women who donate only one man comes forward to donate to a woman.

Nirmalini David, 50, who donated a kidney to her husband, feels fulfilled by the experience. "Nothing fills a woman with a sense of completeness than to see her loved ones happy. She goes that extra length not out of coercion or obligation, but to see that smile on their face, even if it means donating a vital organ, or putting her life on the line for her family." (END/2009)

Copyright © 2009 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved

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UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues- Eighth Session May 19-29, 2009 Global Indigenous Women’s Caucus Statement

temous.org, mardi 26 mai 2009

Agenda Item 3 : Follow Up on the Recommendations of the Permanent Forum (a) Economic and Social Development

Honorable Chairwoman, Members of the UN Permanent Forum, and distinguished representatives of Indigenous Peoples, sisters and brothers here today,

Indigenous Women are the human embodiment of Mother Earth. Managing and protecting Earth’s nurturing gifts is our responsibility. Governments, market-based approaches, finance capital, multinational corporations and extractive industries continue to endanger life for the sake of profit. The recent global economic collapse, Climate Change, water and biodiversity depletion, wars, forced displacement, militarization, and violence against women, children, and Mother Earth provide clear and unmistakable evidence that this system does not work.

Indigenous cultures expressed through Indigenous Women’s work, lives and experiences are in peril. We re-affirm that Indigenous Women bring worldviews, deep invaluable knowledge and tools to correct the global crises—stemming directly from and caused by unsustainable economies—and to carry out their communities’ self-determining development. Furthermore, it is our basic human right to articulate our distinct views of our interconnected relationships with the world around us, including all of our relations, human and non-human. Indigenous Women, as the culture bearers and progenitors of future generations of our Peoples, possess great responsibility in the transmission of this knowledge to our children.

We reiterate our fundamental role in seed conservation, food production, and preservation. Indigenous Women, as the keepers and guardians of much of the world’s biodiversity, including many food and medicinal plants are alarmed by the ongoing expropriations by seed and pharmaceutical corporations—with governments’ complicity—to patent the seeds, genetic material, and/or the processes used in the genetic manipulation of the plants.

Indigenous Women are deeply concerned that the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have not recognized Indigenous Peoples’ rights to our traditional territories, lands and waters in the negotiations of an international regime of access and benefit-sharing due for completion by 2010. We are concerned when the Parties assert their national sovereignty over both genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge necessary to our collective well-being and has cultural value. Indigenous Women oppose all forms of patenting of any form of life. We consider genetic modification and the potential contamination of land by genetically engineered technology a continuation of genocide upon Indigenous Peoples. We perceive these as both malicious and disrespectful acts towards our Mother Earth, ancestries, cultures and future generations.

With regard to the reports of the Permanent Forum on social and economic development, on women, as well as the report on extractive industries, the Global Indigenous Women’s Caucus has the following recommendations :

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

1. We recommend that all UN bodies and agencies and governments report on the implementation of Articles 26 and 31 of the UN DRIP related to the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their lands and territories ; and Indigenous Peoples’ rights to own, control, utilize and protect all aspects of their cultural heritage, including genetic resources. This includes associated traditional knowledge and trade practices derived from their lands and territories.

2. We ask that the Permanent Forum endorse the Declaration of Atitlán (Atitlán, Sololá, Guatemala, April 17-19, 2002), which states, in part, “Food Sovereignty is the right of Peoples to define their own policies and strategies for the sustainable production, distribution, and consumption of food, with respect for their own cultures and their own systems of managing natural resources.” Therefore, we recommend that the Permanent Forum request the appropriate UN agencies to carryout their human rights obligations to guarantee Indigenous Peoples’ right to food sovereignty.

3. We recommend that UN fora addressing issues impacting Indigenous Peoples’ right to food sovereignty, such as the FAO, IFAD and the CBD, report on their processes to protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights to hunt, gather, fish, and carry out their agricultural and other traditional livelihood activities. We call on the agencies to promote capacity-building, and programs and projects by and for Indigenous Women, which focus on the recovery and revitalization of food traditions, sustainable agriculture, and seed saving and free sharing among ourselves. These programs and projects should ensure the full participation of Indigenous Women.

4. We recommend that the Permanent Forum request that the Parties to the CBD recognize Indigenous Peoples’ rights to our ancestral lands, territories and waters, including our genetic resources and associated Indigenous knowledge. Further, we recommend that the Permanent Forum request the Parties to recognize this ownership and right to protect and control our genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, and Indigenous Peoples’ rights to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), in the operational text of the proposed international regime on Access and Benefit Sharing. We request further action from the OHCHR Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to examine the human rights implications of the current discourse on ownership of genetic resources and make recommendations to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

5. We urge the Permanent Forum to demand full and effective participation of the Indigenous Women in any and all UN for a affecting our rights, providing translators at all times and especially during international meetings so that participants can make recommendations based on a full understanding of each other’s concerns.

6. We recommend that the Permanent Forum request the appropriate UN bodies and agencies to guarantee that Indigenous Peoples’ right to food sovereignty and that food security is not negatively affected by biotechnology, in particular genetically-modified organisms, genetically-modified crops, or any environmental release of genetic use restriction technologies (GURTs), commonly referred to as “terminator technology.”

EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES

7. We support the Anchorage Declaration (Anchorage, Alaska, USA, April 24, 2009) call for phasing out fossil fuel development and a moratorium on new fossil fuel development on or near Indigenous lands and territories. Furthermore, we support the Permanent Forum’s conclusion that Indigenous Peoples have “the right to say no to extraction or exploration.” We also support the call for a process that works toward the eventual phase out of fossil fuels, without infringing on Indigenous Peoples’ right to development.

8. We also call upon the Permanent Forum to strengthen interaction with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises ; and to facilitate negotiating platforms with affected Indigenous Peoples, particularly in regard to extractive industries and their impacts on our ways of live, cultures and on our Mother Earth.

9. We call on the Permanent Forum to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples to carry out a broad-based, global study on the activities of extractive industries that damage Indigenous Peoples, especially Indigenous Women, and their impacts in the context of the legal frameworks under which they operate.

10. We recommend a creation of an inter-regional commission of Indigenous Peoples to review the activities of the major extractive industries and to report to the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for each state review.

11. We recommend the UNPFII to nominate a Special Rapporteur to prepare a report on the impact of the activities of major extractive corporations on the health of Indigenous Women.

CULTURAL RESOURCES

12. We call upon all relevant UN bodies and agencies to end the mining and marketing of water and to recognize free access to water as a basic human right in order to preserve cultural heritage, ways of life and self-development.

13. Indigenous Peoples have the right to be properly informed in our indigenous languages and to have meaningful pre-decisional consultation in any development projects. Indigenous Peoples, including Indigenous Women, have the right to appoint their own experts to survey, to evaluate, and to determine if projects impacting on our lives and cultural resources can proceed. Indigenous Women must have equal participation and authority in this process. Indigenous experts’ knowledge, findings and recommendations have parity with those of others and must be given priority. The free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples, including Indigenous Women, must be obtained before such projects can proceed, especially in the case of mega-projects.

14. We request an investigation by January 1, 2010, free from conflict of interest, focusing on the negative impacts and effects of water appropriation by multinational corporations from indigenous communities ; specifically the deterioration, depletion, lack of access and contamination of water.

15. We recommend that UNESCO should take an active role in ensuring that access to sacred sites, genesis sites, and traditional cultural places be protected, and that privatization of land does not negate the right of Indigenous Women’s and their families’ free access to these sites to practice their spirituality, religion, and cultural ways of life for social and economic development.

16. We recommend that the Permanent Forum support the preparation of procedural access to the International Court of Justice on the question of projects impacting our lives, tangible and intangible cultural heritage and resources of Indigenous Peoples, and Mother Earth. This would entail the enforcement of treaties, agreements, and other constructive arrangements between Indigenous Peoples and states.

17. We recommend that the Permanent Forum monitor with UNESCO and other cultural bodies and agencies at the international levels the implementation of Indigenous Women’s rights to equal, full and effective participation and authority in all development processes that impact Indigenous Peoples, especially Indigenous Women.

ENVIRONMENT

18. We strongly support and endorse the Anchorage Declaration (Anchorage, Alaska, USA, April 24, 2009), which especially calls for action in paragraphs 6 and 13.

a. Paragraph 6 : “We challenge states to abandon false solutions to climate change which negatively impact Indigenous Peoples rights, land, air, ocean, forests territories, and waters, including by not limited to nuclear energy, large scale dams, geo-engineering techniques, ‘clean coal’, ago fuels, plantations, market based mechanisms such as carbon trading, the clean development mechanism and forest offsets [REDD]. The human rights of Indigenous Peoples to protect our forests and forests livelihood must be recognized, respected and ensured.”

b. Paragraph 13 : “In order to provide the resources necessary for our collective survival in response to the climate crisis, we declare our communities waters, air, forests, oceans, sea, ice, traditional lands, and territories to be ; ‘food sovereignty areas’, defined and directed by Indigenous Peoples according to customary laws, free from extractive industries, de-foresting, chemical-bases industrial food productions systems.” As such,

19. We strongly recommend the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, especially Indigenous Women in the planning and implementation of all strategies and agreements related to Climate Change. The conference of the parties of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen must include the full and effective participation of the Indigenous Peoples, especially participation from Indigenous Women and Youth.

20. We recommend access to the International Court of Justice to raise our concerns, and to provide a space for Indigenous Women to denounce the abuse of the Indigenous Peoples’ land, water and forest.

EDUCATION

21. We ask the Permanent Forum to encourage UN bodies and agencies as well as governments to take action in order to establish policies that promote and foster the access to, development and maintenance of indigenous-centered education systems and culturally relevant curricula with the full engagement of Indigenous educators and culture bearers, paying particular attention to the education needs of women and girls, allowing them the achievement of education at all levels.

22. Pertaining to UN Millennium Development Goal #2 - Achieving Universal Primary Education, we highlight the need to take a rights-based approach to form true partnerships in the implementation and monitoring of strategies to ensure effective achievement of this Millennium Development Goal (MDG).

23. We support the Permanent Forum’s invitation to UNESCO and governments’ support for a world conference on linguistic diversity, Indigenous languages, identity and education. Furthermore, we welcome the PFII Report of the International Expert Group Meeting on Indigenous Languages and support its recommendations 40 (g) (h) (i) (j) and (k) to governments and ask for follow up on these in 2010.

24. We ask the Permanent Forum to urge the governments to allocate the necessary funding to support our work to revitalize our Indigenous languages. This includes developing culturally appropriate pedagogic materials and curriculum, planning, and training and certification of teachers to teach our languages from our own culturally-specific methodologies and perspectives.

25. We ask the Permanent Forum to urge Indigenous Peoples to use and speak our languages freely all the time. In this regard, Indigenous language learning nests and Indigenous schools and universities should be supported to build a bridge between school, family and community to keep our languages alive and vital.

HEALTH

26. We urge the Permanent Forum to request the UN bodies and agencies and governments to take actions to guarantee Indigenous Women’s full and uninhibited access to state health programs. Indigenous Women must also be enabled to have unrestricted and free access to their own traditional health systems and to develop health policies in full consultation indigenous and other health experts.

27. We urge the Permanent Forum to ask UN bodies and agencies and governments that traditional and Indigenous healing systems must be respected as full and complete knowledge systems in their own right. Practitioners and teachers in these systems must be accorded the equivalent status of experts as other non-traditional or western medical and healing systems.

28. We ask the Permanent Forum to request governments to guarantee Indigenous Women full access to their traditional medicines by implementing the rights to lands, territories, and natural resources established in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Thank you.

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