Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women

Making it happen
145
Women’s and
civil society
organizations
have taken the
lead in holding
governments
and international
agencies
accountable for
implementing
commitments to
gender equality
inheritance laws, which entitled a son to a share of his father’s property at birth,
but entitled a daughter to a share only when she reached the age of 35 and was
unmarried. The Supreme Court of Canada also drew on the convention and
the committee’s general recommendation 19 on violence against women in a
case of alleged sexual assault.
Women’s organizations and civil society organizations have taken the lead
in holding governments and international agencies accountable for implementing
their commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Indeed,
much of the progress made to date has resulted from the political efforts and
the mobilization of such organizations. To do this work well, they need data,
resources, and mechanisms for regular consultations. Gender audits are a monitoring
tool that can help government agencies and NGOs assess what is being
done within institutions to promote gender equality and identify the gaps and
challenges that need to be addressed.
In interactions with countries the international system needs to support
these components of a well functioning country-level accountability and monitoring
system. Simultaneously, the United Nations and other international
institutions, including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and
regional development banks, must ensure that mechanisms are in place for
holding themselves accountable for implementing international mandates and
commitments to gender equality, and that external watchdog agencies, particularly
international women’s organizations, have sufficient input in policy
formulation, implementation, and resource allocation.
Country case studies
The experience of several countries illustrates the complicated process involved
in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. This section
describes the efforts of Cambodia, Chile, Rwanda, and South Africa to improve
women’s status and reduce gender inequality (boxes 12.2–12.5). These countries
are attempting significant institutional reform, catalyzed by strong and
dynamic advocacy by women’s organizations and other actors such as donors
and other civil society movements. 3 These countries have made varying progress
on the seven strategic priorities identified by the task force although it is
difficult to attribute changes to specific government actions.
Each of the four countries has been affected in its recent past by significant
internal turmoil and conflict. In each case women’s organizations and other
powerful change agents in government have seized the opportunity to remedy
societal inequalities. Although peace-building and postconflict periods by
definition provide new opportunities for societal restructuring, such restructuring
can occur in nonconflict settings if some combination of the five elements
described at the beginning of this chapter (change agents with a vision,
institutional structures and processes, technical capacity, financial resources,
and accountability mechanisms) are in place.