GLOBAL COOPERATION NEWSLETTER
March 2010
In this edition

2010 Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development
UK Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society
Commission on the Status of Women – 54th Session
Strengthening Older People's Rights: Towards a UN Convention
Retirement Ages
New From UNRISD
2010 Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development The
Agenda Early Bird registration finishes 31st March The conference will be held from 10th
to 14th June 2010. Visit the website to see what you will be missing if you do not registerand attend www.swsd2010.org

UK Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society Making good society
Making good society, the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into
the Future of Civil Society, argues that civil society has been pushed tothe margins in key areas including politics, finance and the media andthat this must change. The report explores how civil society activity canhelp: grow a more civil economy; enable a rapid and just transition to a
low carbon economy; democratise media ownership and content; andgrow participatory and deliberative democracy.

The Commission hopes that the evidence and ideas provided in this report and the directionof travel it sets for a ‘good’ society will inspire individuals and organisations to act andinvest in civil society activity.

Commission on the Status of Women – 54th Session

March saw the meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the UN in
New York. The following is from the UNDP gender teamThe gender-specific implications of climate change, the economy, HIV/AIDS, and postconflict recovery were the subjects of panel discussions hosted by UNDP and partners
during the meeting.
The 2010 CSW was focused on a 15-year review subsequent to the Beijing Declaration andPlatform for Action was adopted at the landmark Fourth United Nations World Conference
for Women in Beijing in 1995.
Plenary sessions throughout the week were devoted to reviewing progress since Beijing
and reports from Members States on achievements in gender equality and areas ofchallenge.

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“We can be proud but not complacent,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at thePlenary’s International Women’s Day Observance. Mr Moon noted the prevalence ofviolence against women and urged the General Assembly to adopt a resolution as soon as
possible to commit to create the proposed UN gender entity. The press release on the SG’sstatement
isavailableat:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33954&Cr=gender+equality&Cr1=
Other speakers included Norway’s Minister for Gender Equality and Children’s Affairs(notably a man), who said there is no gender equality as long as violence against women
exists; a Canadian high school student and Chinese immigrant who said that genderequality will not be eliminated as long as the preference for sons over daughters exists;
and the president of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
On Thursday, representatives of the UN’s five regional commissions presented regional
perspectives on progress achieved and highlighted remaining gaps and challenges in theimplementation of the Beijing Platform.
They each reported that much progress has been made in a number of areas including
girls’ education and women’s political participation. Nevertheless, the representative ofAsia and the Pacific noted that maternal death is still extremely high in the region. The
representative for Europe pointed to the inadequate availability of sex-disaggregatedstatistics and proposed to work more on policy dimensions of increasing men’s involvementin care and house work.
The representative for Latin America and the Caribbean noted that if things progress at thecurrent pace it will take 40 more years before the region can achieve gender parity inpolitical participation. The representative was also concerned with the existing genderwage gap where a well-educated woman earns much less than a non-educated man.
At statements throughout the week, delegations of many countries expressed support for
the UN’s proposed new gender entity, with several urging that it be finalized andoperational as soon as possible.

Strengthening Older People's Rights: Towards a UN Convention

Despite the fact that older women and men have the same rights as everyone else, older
women and men around the world face age discrimination and are denied their rights on aregular basis. The world is ageing fast and age discrimination is increasing. This
discrimination is completely unacceptable.
However, existing human rights instruments do not provide adequate legal protection ofthe rights of older people. In practice too, older women and men's rights are not being
adequately addressed or protected through the existing human rights system.
The time has come for a special rapporteur and a convention on the rights of older people.
These new human rights instruments would help change attitudes towards older womenand men and increase their visibility at both national and international levels. A newconvention would also clarify government responsibilities towards older women and men,
improve accountability and provide a framework for policy and decision making.
The 12 page publication Strengthening Older People’s Rights: Towards a UN Convention
can be found at (http://www.ngocoa-ny.org/resources/documents/strengthening-rightsresource.pdf <http://www.ngocoa-ny.org/resources/documents/strengthening-rightsresource.pdf>). The publication was produced to strengthen understanding and awarenessof the need for a special rapporteur and convention on the rights of older people.

Retirement Ages
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Spain recently announced plans to raise its official retirement age from 65 to 67. Improved
healthcare and falling birth rates mean the average age of people in developed countries isrising. By 2050, some societies face the expensive prospect of having as many retirees asactive workers. Hence the move by Spain, and others, to raise retirement ages. The
average legal age of retirement is just over 64, but it dips to as low as 58 in Greece and toas high as 67 in Norway and Iceland. (Note: ages can vary between the sexes, with womenoften entitled to earlier retirement.)
The labour force exit age – i.e., the actual average age when people stop working – isoften higher or lower than the official retirement age. In Korea, the average man keeps
working until he’s over 71 – more than 11 years beyond retirement age; by contrast, hiscounterpart in Austria gives up work at about 59, or six years ahead of the official
retirement age.
On average in OECD countries people spend just over 22½ years for women and about
17½ for men in retirement. For women, the longest retirements are in France, whereretirement stretches on for about 27½ years; France also holds the OECD record for men –24 years spent in retirement, compared with just over nine in Mexico.

New From UNRISD

Harmonizing Global Care Policy? Care and the Commission on the Status ofWomenIn March 2009 Member States of the United Nations met in New York at the Commission onthe Status of Women (CSW) to discuss, among other things, the priority theme of “Theequal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care-giving in theGlobal Cooperation Newsletter

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context of HIV/AIDS”. This meeting provided an unprecedented opportunity to focus theinternational community’s attention on care issues and to generate Agreed Conclusions thatwould lay out a roadmap for care policy, potentially influencing national legislation, policies
adopted by UN entities and future international agreements. Using interviews withparticipants and an overview of official documentation, this paper seeks to summarize theachievements of the 2009 CSW, and to suggest where policy conversations about caremight usefully focus next.
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/80256B3C005BCCF9/search/F4E650DD8BEB3175C12576DB003CDFA3?OpenDocument
Social Protection and Poverty
In the last decade, social protection has emerged as a policy framework employed toaddress poverty and vulnerability in developing countries. This report has two main aims:
to provide an overview of social protection, and to provide an assessment of its potential
contribution to addressing poverty and vulnerability in developing countries.
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/80256B3C005BCCF9/search/973B0F57CA78D834C12576DB003BE255?OpenDocument
Community Responses to HIV and AIDS
Although the AIDS epidemic has been examined from many angles, there is still a paucity
of data on how communities themselves are responding to it. The UNRISD project,
Community Responses to HIV/AIDS, initiated in 2004, commissioned researchers fromeight sites across the globe to document what communities—individuals, extended families,
households and wider social groupings—are doing about HIV and AIDS, how they areinteracting with state and non-state institutions, and the opportunities for—or barriers to—more supportive community environments.
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/80256B3C005BCCF9/search/3F7FC6E850BA9A61C125765E004F74D8?OpenDocument
A Debate on the Public Role of Religion and its Social and Gender Implications
This paper addresses the relationship between religion, politics and gender equality
through four aspects: (i) what authority, if any, states can cede to religious communities orgroups without beginning to threaten gender equality; (ii) the informal impact of religions
on attitudes and lives, beyond any institutionalized power; (iii) the possibilities and limits ofinternal reform; and (iv) the possibilities and difficulties of alliances between religious andsecular groups. The central theme running through the essay is that religions mostthreaten gender equality when they are conceived of—and conceive themselves as—
corporate bodies, capable of speaking with a unified voice.
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/80256B3C005BCCF9/search/C6E7ED9E2588C1F6C125765E004C8F66?OpenDocument
The content of this Global Newsletter may be freely reproduced or cited provided the source is acknowledged.
Views do not necessarily represent policies of ICSW. Newsletter Editor: Denys Correll – Executive Director.
ICSW C/- MOVISIE Netherlands Centre for Social Development
PO Box 19129
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Netherlands
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