Media Advisory

Owning Development: Promoting Gender Equality in New Aid Modalities and Partnerships

A Conference Organized by UNIFEM in Partnership with the European Commission

For immediate release
Date: 3 November 2005

Media Inquiries:
Oisika Chakrabarti, Media Specialist, UNIFEM Headquarters, +1 212 906-6506,

WHEN:
9-11 November 2005, Renaissance Hotel, Rue de Parnasse 19, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.

(Programme and RSVP details provided below.)

A Press Conference will be held on 10 November 2005, from 1.00 to 1.45 p.m., in the Geneva II room.

WHAT:
Recent years have seen a considerable reshaping of the structures and financing of development cooperation. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, adopted in March 2005, reflects the changing nature of development aid, where aid allocation is increasingly driven by partnership between donor and recipient countries, and ownership of the development process by the recipients of aid. These shifts have raised important questions about implementation and the accountability of all development actors. At the national and international policy levels, they pose new challenges and present new opportunities for reaching internationally agreed development objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals.

UNIFEM and the European Commission are holding a conference to assess these challenges and opportunities, and examine the effects the changing landscape of development cooperation is having on efforts to promote gender equality, especially as this intersects with efforts to eradicate poverty. The conference is being organized as a follow-up to three important events in 2005 that have linked commitments to gender equality with development cooperation goals - the 10-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action, the adoption of the Paris Declaration and the 2005 World Summit.

Gender equality advocates from developed and developing countries, as well as representatives from governments, academia and donor bodies, will gather to discuss strategies to ensure that women's rights imperatives are central as the new aid architecture evolves. They will discuss ways to embed gender perspectives into national development planning and aid modalities, and discuss mechanisms to track and measure progress towards gender equality in governance and budgetary processes, so that governments' obligations to women are backed up by the allocation of sufficient resources.

PROGRAMME AND PARTICIPATION:
View the conference programme. Media are invited to attend the regular sessions of the conference. For space and security reasons, an rsvp will be required for the press conference and all regular sessions of the main conference. Please rsvp to the contacts listed above, stating your media affiliation. Interviews can also be arranged through these contacts throughout the duration of the conference.

For background on key issues, see publication Accountability Upside Down.

Media Contacts:

• Leigh Pasqual, +1 212 9065463 (New York)
  leigh.pasqual@undp.org
• Ciara Goldstein, +32 2 2992614 (Brussels)
  Ciara.GOLDSTEIN@cec.eu.int