Leading Change: The Power to Act

Noleen Heyzer, director of UNIFEM, as keynote speaker at the opening session of the Summit commented on the many contexts affecting the work of the YWCA and their partner organisations and suggested strategies to meet current challenges. Major challenges identified by Dr. Heyzer included the need to link global aims to local action agendas and vice versa; to include women’s perspectives in efforts to develop safe and secure environment and to recognise the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls. One challenge however stood out and that was to integrate the current agendas, i.e. those covering human rights, the environment, and economic development. “As women organising for change, as women organising for a more secure world we have to get out of our single issues. More than at any time our issues interconnect. And that is the challenge today. More than at any time we have to develop the skills
to cross boundaries.”

Princess Basma Bint Talal (Jordan) identified the impact of armed conflict on women and the need for women to be involved in peace negotiation. “The roles of women and religious leaders in peace building seem to me to be significantly under exploited forces for peace making. In conflict ridden areas women are often disproportionately affected by hostilities and thus largely seen to be primary victims of war.”

The incorporation of women’s perspectives and lives into human rights standards and practice forces recognitions of the dismal failure of countries to accord women the human dignity and respect they deserve – simply as human beings.  Afia Nathaniel (Pakistan), independent filmmaker, cautioned the role of the media in their use of information as a weapon in influencing the world agenda. “The biggest weapon of mass destruction is still undeclared and unrecognised. It is not a weapon forged out of nuclear matter but it is one forged in the mass media, namely information.”

Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, Minister for Energy and Minerals in South Africa stretched the thinking of the YWCA by insisting that partnerships with industry, corporations and governments are needed if YWCA women want to achieve the change they wish to see in their communities. Christine Grumm (USA), executive director of the Women’s Funding Network, furthered this agenda as she shared her experience of funding with the YWCA movement. “Women as social change agents must be fundraisers with big and bold visions”

As part of the summit, there was a series of workshops organized around the twelve issues of the Beijing Platform for Action (BFA). The workshop on women and the media, which aimed to assess how far we have come in implementing Section J of the BFA, addressed the rapid progress in information and communication technology in recent years and the opportunities and challenges this advance presents to the worldwide women’s movement. As part of a panel, including Susana George of Isis  International- Manila who spoke on gender and the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society and Professor Dale Spender of the University of Queensland who presented her work on the internet as a channel for women’s voices, the Women and Media Programme Officer of the WACC Women’s Programme gave a talk on monitoring gender in the media with particular reference to the Global Media Monitoring Project. Facilitated by Anne Walker of the International Women’s Tribune Centre, the workshop ended with a list of recommendations on women and media being recorded to be presented to the YWCA for integration into their future work.

As Dr Musimbi Kanyoro, General Secretary of the World YWCA, stated in her concluding comments of the Summit, “The International Women’s Summit was an opportunity for women from different situations to hear each other, evaluate the progress women are making and adapt strategies to move forward and address barriers that affect progress. It was a time of celebration and joy as more than 1000 women met together and expressed the hope within us and motivates us to be leaders of change.”