United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Women, Peace and Sustainable Development - Contribution to WSSD

Working Groups on “Women and a Culture of Peace” and of “Women, Science and Technology : from Budapest to Johannesburg” of the Collective Consultation of NGOs at UNESCO “Gender Equality and Equity”.


Hand in hand, let us assert our capacities and ensure a sustainable and peaceful development for future generations.

Women perceive the links between equality, development and peace
There is no development possible without peace. Destruction leads to refugee displacements, the land cannot be cultivated and populations are famished, deprived of their most fundamental rights.

United Nations International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010)
Equality between women and men is one of the eight pillars of the decade. Women favour dialogue for conflict resolution.

Disarmament Education.
Women have long denounced the scandal of colossal sums spent on arms to the detriment of social and development investments. They make statements to the Conference on Disarmament and cooperate locally with disarmament for development initiatives.

Security Council Resolution 1325
recognizes the vitality and skills of women as actors of social cohesion and the survival of their families and communities in times of conflict. Now women must be included in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post-conflict consolidation of peace and reconstruction.


The world needs women’s vitality


Let us develop new attitudes
Women live in societies that in most countries

  • are organized by men
  • look down upon so-called “feminine” values
  • pass over violence to women in silence.

    The work in favour of peace education, social cohesion and respect for the environment accomplished in particular by women is ruined by negative attitudes and actions.
    The United Nations Organization which promotes positive values, encounters the same difficulties.

    UNESCO supports projects in the fields of education, science, culture and communication which promote :
  • cooperation
  • mutual understanding
  • solidarity
  • attention, respect
  • recognition of differences
  • dialogue
  • sharing of knowledge
    in order to ensure a sustainable, equitable and peaceful development for all the peoples of the planet.

    The NGOs, in their diversity, bring their long term experience and their knowledge of grass-roots situations.

    Women’s contributions to these changes are essential

    Women are already active in their families, in the community, at their work, in international relations
    A few examples :
    Actions :
  • Thousands of women’s local initiatives to safeguard the quality of the air, of water (a vital element often managed and transported by women) and of the land they cultivate (Colombia, India, Kenya...).
  • Women from Chernobyl have joined the victims of atom bombs and military tests to put an end to nuclear madness.
  • Afghan women intend to have their say in the reconstruction of their country.
  • Indigenous women defend the rights of their peoples.
  • Women are organizing everywhere to safeguard health, the environment, justice and dignity, and to free themselves from violence and poverty. They are inventing a new conception of security.
  • in different conflict zones, on all continents, in spite of danger and hatred, women manage to hold out their hands to women of the opposite side (Northern Ireland, Israel, Palestine, Rwanda, Somalia, Ex-Yugoslavia ....).

    Proposals :
  • Women’s Action Agenda for a Healthy and Peaceful Planet 2002-2015. www.wedo.org
  • Statement from the European Women’s Conference for a Sustainable Future
  • Petition “Peace is a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development ” from the same conference. www.wecf.org
  • Statement from the Regional Conference on African Women and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development www.unesco.org/women/NEPAD


    Women scientists greatly influenced the World Conference on Science organized by UNESCO and ICSU at Budapest , Hungary in 1999

    The final Declaration calls for:
  • Science for knowledge
  • Knowledge to serve :
    - progress,
    - peace,
    - development for all,
    - human well-being,
    - poverty reduction.
  • Ethics, respected by states, civil society and the production sector, taking into account :
    - human rights,
    - present and future generations,
    - life support systems and their diversity,
    - the environment,
    - traditional and local knowledge.

    The Declaration denounces the historical inequality between women and men in the field of science.
    “For sustainable development, equal access for girls and boys, for women and men, to scientific and technological education and training, to environmental science and to decision-making positions.”


    Women Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
    1905 Bertha von Suttner ( Austria )
    1931 Jane Addams ( U.S.A.)
    1946 Emily Greene Balch ( U.S.A.)
    1976 Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams ( Northern Ireland)
    1979 Mother Teresa ( India)
    1982 Alva Myrdal ( Sweden )
    1991 Aung San Suu Kyi ( Myanmar)
    1992 Rigoberta Menchu Tum ( Guatemala)
    1997 Jody Williams ( U.S. A)

    Women Awarded the Nobel Prize in Science
    1903 Marie Sklodowska Curie ( Physics )
    1911 Marie Sklodowska Curie ( Chemistry )
    1935 Irène Joliot-Curie ( Chemistry)
    1947 Gerty Radnitz Cori (Physiology and Medicine )
    1963 Maria Goeppert Mayer ( Physics)
    1964 Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin ( Chemistry)
    1977 Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (Physiology and Medicine)
    1983 Barbara McClintock (Physiology and Medicine)
    1986 Rita Levi-Montalcini (Physiology and Medicine)
    1988 Gertrude B. Elion (Physiology and Medicine)
    1995 Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Physiology and Medicine)

    Women Awarded the Unesco Prize for Peace Education
    1981 Helena Keckonen ( Finland)
    1987 Laurence Deonna ( Sweden)
    1990 Rigoberta Menchu Tum ( Guatemala)
    1991 Ruth Leger Sivard ( U.S.A.)
    1992 Mère Teresa ( India)
    1993 Madeleine de Vits ( Belgium )
    1996 Chiara Lubich ( Italy )
    1999 Les Mères de la Place de Mai ( Argentina)
    Honourable Mentions
    1999 Irène Drolet (Canada)
    2000 Christiana Ayoka Mary Thorpe (Sierra Leone)
    2001 Betty Reardon (U.S.A.)


    Women’s full participation is urgently needed in decisions concerning the future of our planet.
    The NGOs, together, in the “Women’s Caucus” at Johannesburg will make women’s voices heard.
    		•


     
    Source UNESCO BSP/WYS - SC/AP
    Publication Date 13 Aug 2002
    Keywords women sustainable development
    © UNESCO 1995-2007 - ID: 5168