Rio 20+ United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012

GWA participated in this conference by participating in and contributing to many side-events of this conference. Furthermore GWA is a member of the Major group "Women", which worked hard to make clear that sustainable development is only possible when gender is taken seriously.

During the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development a vast amount of activites, side events and conferences took place. GWA participated in several of them.

First of all, GWA was one of the contributors of the side-event "Dublin Rio Principles: Bridging the Gender Gap in Water Resource Management - Where do we stand, what lessons have we learned". Both GWA members Ninon Machado and Daniela Noguiera spoke on the panel that discussed discussed gender mainstreaming in the water sector and reviewed progress on strategies, actions, approaches and partnerships on gender mainstreaming. For more information please go here.

The Deputy Director of GWA, Esther de Jong, was approached to speak at the Water Day, organsied by UN-Water in the panel on Water and Sanitation as a Human Right. In her opening remarks she talked about the importance of the recognition of water as a human right especially for women.

In the side-event “Gender and Sustainable Development: Rio+20 Commitments” hosted by UNEP, Esther signed the "Gender and Sustainable Development Rio+20 Commitments" on behalf GWA. These were also signed by the "Network of Women Ministers and leaders for the environment" as well as by UNEP, IUCN, WECF/WICF, GWP, UNDP, WEDO and GGCA.

In the session “Partnerships for Advancing Gender Equality and Sustainability” of the Rio+20 Partnership Forum, organised by IUCN, UNDESA and UNEP, GWA functioned as a hub-leader “Water” at the marketplace. Together with the participants at the hub, the elements and influencing factors of partnerships for gender mainstreaming in the water sector were discussed, and gender sensitive indicators for the water-sector were formulated.

You can read the complete report of GWAs activities here.

The final statement and the press release of the Women's major group on the dissapointing outcomes of the summit with respect to gender, can be accessed by clicking the link.