Paragraph 59(e)-(g) of the Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. A. Women and Poverty
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/29
Strategic objective A.1.
Review, adopt and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty
Actions to be taken
59. By multilateral financial and development institutions, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and regional development institutions, and through bilateral development cooperation:
e. Ensure that structural adjustment programmes are designed to minimize their negative effects on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups and communities and to assure their positive effects on such groups and communities by preventing their marginalization in economic and social activities and devising measures to ensure that they gain access to and control over economic resources and economic and social activities; take actions to reduce inequality and economic disparity;
f. Review the impact of structural adjustment programmes on social development by means of gender-sensitive social impact assessments and other relevant methods, in order to develop policies to reduce their negative effects and improve their positive impact, ensuring that women do not bear a disproportionate burden of transition costs; complement adjustment lending with enhanced, targeted social development lending;
g. Create an enabling environment that allows women to build and maintain sustainable livelihoods.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The larger international financial and development organizations or institutions are important for the development of the world’s economy. There is, in this sense, the important consideration of the inclusion of some of the most powerful brokers in the world in the assistance of getting developing societies into the category of the developed society; although, of course, Bill Gates made some light calls, recently, in a change to some of the terminology around developed/developing, first-world/third-world and so on.
In contradistinction to the implications of the prior periods, we see the need for the instantiation of structural adjustment programs but with an explicit emphasis on the “vulnerable and disadvantaged groups and communities,” which, as some of you may recall, was an important point of conversation in the prior sections because the implied conclusion was the women of the world in the worst circumstances were disproportionately negatively affected by the structural adjustment programmes simply because women, especially poor women of color in developing countries, were not in the plans for those adjustments.
The ability to ensure the positive developments without the disproportionately negative effects on women is incredibly important for the advancement of societies through the scales of known social development, especially with the emphasis on the plight of the poorest women in their societies. It is the giving of a chance for women to have some access to and control over their own social and economic resources within these societies.
Indeed, these can help reduce the levels of inequality and the degree of economic disparity. It is not a simple calculation of moving from here-to-there but also bearing in mind the ways in which the historical record shows ways in which to do it, equitably and with women in mind. The review of the prior impacts is important in order to improve on the past and carve a more positive future for women who have been negatively impacted by the structural adjustment programmes of that past generation right into much of the present – the so-called neoliberal period.
The disproportionate level of the costs are being born by women, and so not by most men by implication, which makes this structural-institutional and, thus, a part of what is sometimes termed the Patriarchy but can more simply be defined as an institutional bias against the poor who are most often women of color, but women generally. The next portions are ways in which to continue this work for the development of societies.
Especially as regards the reduction of the costs on women and the disproportionate bearing of the burden by women, this will involve something or sets of things approximating the environments that permit women to be able to “build and maintain sustainable livelihoods,” and as climate change and overpopulation are the main concerns regarding future sustainability of human ppopulations; this, therefore, makes the focus on environmental and modern energy consumption-production cycles and reproductive health rights, including abortion and family planning, crucial for not only the advancement and empowerment of women but also the future sustainability of the global ecosystem in any reasonable consideration with humans living decent lives.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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