OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Ana Elena Obando is of the view that development that is not gender specific and does not address the interaction of multiple oppressions, or does not address human development in line with sustainable development, will fail to include the majority, and to address environmental concerns and this will certainly jeopardize chances of success in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

‘In Larger Freedom: Towards Security, Development, and Human Rights for All’ is a report that offers concrete measures that states can adopt for meeting the MDGs by 2015. Supported and inspired as it is by the UN Charter and other studies by the Secretary General’s high level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and the Millennium Project headed by Prof Jeffrey D.Sachs, it focuses firstly on the inter-relation between security, development and human rights, and secondly, on the freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom to live in dignity as the aspiration of member states.

Among the critical factors noted by Obando in critiquing the report are the following:

• Gender is seen as only one aspect of development that can be dramatically advanced – and not as a basic cross-cutting or overarching component of development.
• Gender equality is seen to be absent in the section on security, as it is in the sections on human rights and institutional reform. It does not mention Security Council Resolution 1325 or the principle of gender balance in the creation of the proposed commission for peace-building or conflict resolution.

Obando points out that the report looks at possibilities of reform in the Security Council, ECOSOC, and Human Rights Council but not in the International Monetary Fund, World Bank or the World Trade Organisation. In doing so, it seems to be satisfied with looking at reforms that will be subservient to a macroeconomic paradigm that privileges the logic of growth driven by the private sector over the logic of human rights.

She calls for strengthening of the concept of human security to include security of women in private and public spaces.

She also states that the delinking of articulated goals for gender equality from existing declarations and conventions such as CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, and the Cairo Programme of Action, place in doubt the question of the system’s effectiveness for women’s agendas.

To read the full article, visit Women's Human Rights net.