NVR, women for water and BPW (co-)organize side events in New York

During the opcoming CSD, the women's organizations are very active. Among the activities staged are:
- Business and Professional Women (Brasil in this case) are staging a side event on 6 May 2008 (6:15-7:45 PM Venue: Conference Room B) titled "Mobilizing Communities for Reforestation and Water Protection:"Trees are life", a worldwide project for the environment and education".

- Women for Water Partnership are co-convenors for the EUWI Africa Workinggroup side event on the 12th of May (18.15-20.30 room 6) giving attention to the Launch of the Africa EU statement on sanitation and Civil society partnerships for water and sanitation in Africa.

- the Netherlands’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Housing, Spatial Planning & Environment, the Netherlands Women’s Council and ANPED (Northern Alliance for Sustainability), are organizing a interactive event, entitled Biomass production for Biofuels?
Only if sustainable: how to achieve social, economic and ecological sustainability
(Wednesday, 7 May 2008, 1.15 PM to 2.45 PM at Conference Room 6, UN).
The panel hopes to contribute to this year’s deliberations of the Commission on Sustainable development (CSD) with an interactive discussion on how to achieve social, economic and ecological sustainability in biomass production for biofuels.

‘Never mind about biofuels’ and ‘We don’t need them’. It seems biofuels have quickly lost their cachet. The logging of rainforests and the displacement of food crops by biofuel crops, resulting in higher food and fodder prices, have cast biofuels in a bad light. In short, the cure is worse than the disease? We acknowledge these problems. A key first step in this regard was the development of sustainability criteria. The Dutch Committee on Sustainable Biomass, the Cramer Committee, presented six such criteria last year, including the stipulation that CO2 gains yielded through the use of biofuels must exceed those of fossil fuels by many factors, must not be produced at the expense of biodiversity (i.e. rainforest deforestation must be halted), not compete with food production and biomass / biofuel production and must be socially responsible (i.e. contribute to the prosperity and well-being of local populations). Within the European Union a set of sustainability criteria for biofuels and bioliquids developed by the European Commission is currently under discussion.

The question now is how we will apply those criteria jointly with other countries and NGOs / CSOs – going from drawing board to practical reality. We will have to demonstrate that our ideas can actually work.The Netherlands and NGOs want to discuss and demonstrate how things should and can be done: a chance in the challenge.

The panellists/speakers in the event will be Ms. Nienke Smeets, policy advisor of the Netherlands’ Ministry of Environment, a speaker of the Drylands Coordination Group, Neth Dano of Third World Network, Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth Africa and a speaker from the NVR.
The panel will be moderated by Ms. Lesha Witmer, chair of the Commission on Sustainable Development of the Netherlands women’s Council (NVR).

Lesha Witmer and Abby Mgugu will also be speakers at other side events.

Welcome to the blog

Dear reader, today I have become a member of this blog. My name is Marian Stuiver and I am the new women's representative of the Netherlands to the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) at the United Nations in May 2008.

Yesterday during the meeting in Amersfoort of the Nederlandse Vrouwen Raad (Dutch Women's Council) a diverse group of women's organisations of the Netherlands discussed their views and priorities in contributions to the CSD 2008. It is my task and honour to bundle the collected findings of the women's organisation of the last years to a good contribution for this review year.
At the moment my tasks are to collect best practices of women's organisations, contribute to the national report and to provide input for the Dutch instruction. My main challenge is to look back what has been done before, what expertise and insights has been build up, what has already been put into declarations and to look forward: what needs to be implemented and strengthened for the future.

Later on more on this blog from my experiences

Ideas discussed

In the context of the preperations for CSD 16, the NVR organized a policy consultation session for the members of the delegation(s) and interested (womens) organizations, that took place on the 5th April in Amersfoort.

Marian and Lesha gave a briefing on the current (draft) proposals and ideas of the EU and the Netherlands and the additional or other points of view of the women's organizations.

Main theme's of attention - to put forward to the Dutch delegation and off course in New York next month - that came out of the meeting are:

• let's have a look at earlier statements and commitments - from the Netherlands, the EU as well as the CSD - again and stress the need for implementation (also in the Netherlands)
• practise what you preach
• add to and stress the interlinkages with earlier issues and pay attention more to the cross-cutting issues like gender, finance etc. (as agreed during CSD 11) in order to keep continuity and sustainability
• "Africa" should not only address agriculture as an issue, but also about land & water rights, water & sanitation, HIV/ aids, energy, stakeholder participation an dialogue, etc.
• support earlier statements and ideas - such as the decleration from the Africa Water week, Africasan (see links on the right), the report from FEMA - from the African continent as much as possible (be demand driven)
• pay attention to energy for water and water for energy; also related to biomass, biogas etc. production
• show the strength of CSOs/ NGO's and stress the importance of their participation on an equal footing again
• good governance includes involvement of local organizations (decentralization) and creating an enabling environment and capacity development for those groups
• good governance should not be "an excuse" not to act or (also) excluding NGO's from the countries involved from funding
• financial issues inclduing micro finance have to be addressed
• food security and safety should be addressed (water for food and ecosystems)
• sustainable biomass production and managing the different interests of the "markets" including for livestock has to be addressed.

More detailed ideas will be posted later. The meeting's result will be used by Marian and Lesha (as support team) for the input during CSD.

A very big "thank you" to all who participated on their free saturday afternoon.

new women representative the Netherlands

During the UN CSD, a women's representative, elected by the Dutch women's organizations, is a member of the Dutch government delegation. For the CSD 16/17 cycle the NVR general assembly nominated Marian Stuiver for this post. Also the National Youth Council and the NGOs are having a representative take part in the delegation.

Marian studied rural sociology and environmental filosofy at the University of wageningen en recently got her PHd. She works at the University of Amsterdam.

In the coming days she will introduce herself some more on this weblog.