Planning Meeting for the 2010 NGO Global Women’s Forum for Beijing + 15 October 20, 2009
Cluster chairs give their reports:
1. Victoria—Attendance: there are two Salvation Army officers who’ll show us around—tour the area and see how the space can be used. They’ll be the two main contact people that we’ll work with during the two days.
a. The rooms are handicap accessible
We cannot find a UN agency that will request a place for the UN Lobby art exhibit. This time, we’re using mostly photographs for the exhibit, which will depict BPfA’s development through the years. There’s need for only one agency and if anyone knows someone or has contacts with a UN agency to sponsor the event, or want to be a part of it, contact Victoria.
2. Shannon read the email from the Outreach Chair—is in the process of developing strategies for outreach. Looking for ways to incorporate young people as NGO interns, outreach through social networking sites like facebook, email, etc. We’ll send out short surveys to assess what is needed to move forward as well as building contacts with regional committees.
3. Public Relations, Media, Roundtable: Social Watch is going to come up with a publication of about a 100 pages translated into French and Spanish that will highlight three areas: 1) Gender watch index of all the progress made since the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995. 2) Questionnaires will also be provided to assess the issues. 3) A number of essays (3-6) written by experts on topics that have not been included before like climate change, the financial crisis, etc. We’re trying to get world-renowned writers to write these essays.
a. The budget for the creation of the publication right now is $56,000—which is the main issue right now because we want to reduce it as much as we can.
b. We’re looking into setting up a website for it and find alternative ways to make it accessible and efficient at a reasonable cost.
4. UN-Women Watch: In terms of NGO participation in the UN Commission on the Status of Women, we’re encountering a number of challenges that include office relocations all over the city and we’re no longer allowed to store publications in the main building. We have the invitations to go and the website running for pre-registration and registration. You need a username and password in order to register.
a. No decision has been made yet in terms of limitations for organizations, but we’ll need to issue some kind of tickets for entry into the conference room. Also, details on how much room/space will be allocated are not yet clear. If you’re based in New York and have UN passes, there’s no problem, but those that are coming from other countries should follow appropriate steps that’ll enable them to attend the event.
All the information that is needed on the deadlines about the written individual and joint statements is available on the website: the deadline for individual statements is November 13th, and November 23rd for the joint statements.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/NGO.html
TOUR
There are 3 main rooms available for the breakout sessions; the auditorium and two other rooms one of which the lunch boxes will be in.
➢ Caterer: The lunch boxes comprise of cookies, chips, sandwiches, and a pasta salad and water. There’ll be refreshments in the morning and the afternoon.
➢ The question of whether or not people will be able to eat in the breakout rooms is still open.
➢ Even though the rooms are handicap accessible, the people that’ll need it will have to come in through the 13th Street entrance and then take the elevator.
➢ Van(?) Mason will be in charge of the media and technical details like audio, video, lighting, etc. The auditorium holds 1700 people: it has 2 screens for presentations and such. There is video and two TV screens on stage as well. There is wireless network in the building for web-casting.
o Media equipment like portable screens and DVD players are also available for the breakout rooms—these should be requested ahead of time. About 100 functioning translating equipment are also available.
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Handout:
2010 Forum Program
Day 1
• Panel One—Doctor’s Report on the State of the World’s Women and Girls
• Breakout Sessions—Recommendations on Violence against Women, Impact of World Economic Crisis, Climate Change and Women, the Girl Child
Day 2
• Panel Two—Voices from Around the World
• Breakout Sessions—Recommendations from Regions
• Panel Three-Achieving Gender Equality, Peace and Development
• Breakout Sessions—Recommendations-MDGs, CEDAW and other reporting mechanisms, building women’s leadership, GEAR
Points, Suggestions and Questions
1) The Executive Committee of the NGO-CSW has suggested that cultural event(s) should be added to the program. But there needs to be some negotiations as to how we can move forward with the programming.
a. The author of the Pulitzer Prize book, Ruined, Lynn Nottage, has offered to do a reading.
2) It would be useful to have something in the beginning of the program that will put BPfA + 15 into context in order to inform people of what it was about (it should be something “exciting” with people from different regions who were in Beijing in 1995). If possible, we can move the 11-12pm session on the first day to the afternoon to accommodate this.
3) We might have to rotate the breakout sessions and lunch because it would be difficult to have everyone take lunch at the same time with the given space.
4) Also, we’re going to have to make choices as to what issues are crosscutting when putting the breakout groups together. It is possible to have 12 breakouts alternating but the logistical committee will have to have a say in how it is organized.
a. Each of the breakout groups is supposed to come up with recommendations for a call to action.
5) During the breakouts, can we give an assignment to each group to come up with two important critical issues that they found in their discussions that can then be a part of the call to action report?
a. There’ll be a draft for the call to action ready before the Forum takes place, but it will be open ended so that more ideas and issues can be added to it.
6) How can we incorporate the emerging issues like climate change and the financial crisis into the program?
7) Can small subgroups meet two weeks from now to discuss and come up with dynamic titles for each panel?
a. We can do emails and see what everyone has to say about the titles, then synthesize these and put it forward in the next meeting.
Do we have any hints as to what the regions are going to talk about?
a. Mavic is in contact with the regional and sub-regional coordinators
9) Some issues that need to be added to the agenda are women and armed conflict, migration, women and health, food security. We need to think about the broadest titles/topics possible for the breakouts.
10) Panel two is going to bring forward priority issues from the different regions.
