|
Resources
and links on globalization
Women
and Globalization
|
Women
and the Economy : an introduction to women and globalization
This is a
project of the UN Platform for Action Committee (UNPAC), established
in Manitoba, Canada in 1995 after the Fourth
World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995 to advocate
for the implementation of the Platform
for Action born out of Beijing as well as other United Nations
agreements which advance women's equality.
"For
women around the world... globalization is not an abstract process
unfolding on an elevated stage. It is concrete and actual. Female
textile workers from... Eastern Germany are losing their jobs
to women in Bangladesh; Filipinas clean vegetables and kitchens
in Kuwait; Brazilian prostitutes offer their services around Frankfurt's
main railway station; and Polish women look after old people at
rock-bottom prices in... Germany..."
|
 |
A gender
perspective on the United Nations International Conference on
Financing for Development,
March
18-22, 2002, Monterrey, Mexico
This report
has a number of valuable sections, including:
"The
NEPAD, Gender and the Poverty Trap"
(April
2002)
by Zo Randriamaro (Madagascar/ Ghana), program director at Gender
and Economic Reforms in Africa in Accra
"...One
of NEPAD's largest failings is to ignore the traumatic fallout
on women of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and other policies
imposed by the international financial institutions, as well as
their contribution in the impoverishment of African countries..."
|
|
The
International Gender and Trade Network
"The
IGTN is an international network of gender advocates actively working
to promote equitable, social, and sustainable trade. The Network utilizes
research, advocacy and economic literacy to address the specific trade
issues of the seven regions: Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin
America, North America, and Pacific."
The network's website offers
information and links to organizations and papers on women and trade
issues around the world.
Focus on the Global
South
"Focus aims
to consciously and consistently articulate, link and develop greater
coherence between local community-based and national, regional and global
paradigms of change. Focus on the Global South strives to create a distinct
and cogent link between development at the grassroots and the "macro"
levels."
Based in Bangkok,
Thailand, Focus on the Global South is an important source of articles,
books, analysis and general coverage of globalization issues today.
Their website is an excellent resource with many links to other organizations.
Asia Pacific Forum on
Women, Law and Development
"APWLD
is an independent, non-government, non-profit organization. It is committed
to enabling women to use law as an instrument of social change for equality,
justice and development. It has a consultative status at the Economic
and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC).
Objectives: To enable women in the region to use law as an instrument
of change for the empowerment of women in their struggle for justice,
peace, equality and development. To promote basic concepts of human
rights in the region as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminations Against Women (CEDAW)
and other relevant international human rights instruments."
Diverse Women for Diversity
An
international women's network based in New Delhi, India, Diverse Women
for Diversity is a programme of Navdanya.
"It seeks to herald a global campaign of women on biodiversity,
cultural diversity and food security. Diverse Women for Diversity echoes
women's voices from the local and grassroots level to global fora and
international negotiations. It seeks to strengthen women's grassrots
movements and provide women with a common international platform to
air their views. Over the years, Diverse Women for Diversity has evolved
a non-violent resistance and opposition to globalisation, emergency
of genetic engineering and patents on life forms. Women of the world
join hands under Diverse Women for Diversity."
Peoples'
Global Action and
see the Global Action Database at http://www.all4all.org/en/
"In February
1998, movements from all continents met in Geneva to launch a worldwide
coordination of resistances to the global market, a new alliance of
struggle and mutual support called Peoples' Global Action against "Free"
Trade and the World Trade Organisation (PGA). This platform, defined
by the PGA hallmarks, manifesto and organisational principles, is an
instrument for communication and coordination for all those fighting
against the destruction of humanity and the planet by capitalism, and
for building alternatives. These documents have evolved during subsequent
conferences, in particular to take a clearly anti-capitalist (not just
anti-neoliberal) stand, to avoid confusion with right-wing anti-globalisers
and to strengthen the perspective on gender.
So far, PGA's major
activity has been coordinating decentralised Global Action Days around
the world to highlight the global resistance of popular movements to
capitalist globalisation. The first Global Action Days, during the 2nd
WTO ministerial conference in Geneva in May 1998 involved tens of thousands
in more than 60 demonstrations and street parties on five continents.
Subsequent Global Action Days have included those against the G8 (June
18/1999), the 3rd WTO summit in Seattle (November 30/1999), the World
Bank meeting in Prague (September 26/2000), the 4th WTO summit in Qatar
(November 2001), etc.."
International Forum on
Globalization
"The
International Forum on Globalization (IFG) is an alliance of sixty leading
activists, scholars, economists, researchers and writers formed to stimulate
new thinking, joint activity, and public education in response to economic
globalization.
The goal of the
IFG ... is twofold: (1) Expose the multiple effects of economic globalization
in order to stimulate debate, and (2) Seek to reverse the globalization
process by encouraging ideas and activities which revitalize local economies
and communities, and ensure long term ecological stability."
Public
Citizen's Global
Trade Watch
"Global Trade Watch (GTW) promotes
democracy by challenging corporate globalization, arguing that the current
globalization model is neither a random inevitability nor 'free trade.'"
Oxfam
International has an excellent site full of information, papers
and other resources. On trade issues, see for instance their report
on cotton:
Cultivating
Poverty: The impact of US cotton subsidies on Africa Oxfam International
Paper No. 30, Sept. 2002
" American cotton subsidies are destroying livelihoods in Africa
and other developing regions. By encouraging over-production and export
dumping, these subsidies are driving down world prices – now at their
lowest levels since the Great Depression. While America’s cotton barons
get rich on government transfers, African farmers suffer the consequences."
Click on link above for
summary and to download full paper
to
globalization menu
|
