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2. Inscribing Development into Rights, 1966-1975
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43 2 Inscribing Development into Rights, 1966–1975 Discrimination against any group of human beings is wrong, not because it hurts that particular group but because, in the final analysis, the fact of its existence hurts all groups of society. —Minerva Bernardino1 • Building the Institutional Architecture • Learning to Integrate Women in Development • Expanding Women’s Rights:The CSW and the UN’s Population Policy • Finding Allies: UNESCO • Expanding Women’s Space:The International Women’s Year Conference at Mexico City • The Peace Tent The UN’s First Development Decade (1960–1970) was based on the hypothesis that injections of capital into the economies of developing countries would “trickle down”to those placed low in the economic scale. The International Development Strategy (IDS) devised for the Second Development Decade (1970– 1980) redefined the purpose of development as“bring[ing] about sustained improvement in the well-being of the individual and bestow[ing] benefits on all.”2 During the Second Development Decade, both women and men became important to the development process and the IDS specifically called for “the full integration of women in the total development effort.”3 This sentence was included in the Second Development Decade plan on the initiative of Gloria Scott of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the UN Secretariat.4 Women who entered the UN from the newly liberated countries added a new dimension to the deliberations, knowledge, and prioritization of issues in the organization. Many of these women had been participants in their countries’ Women, Development, and the UN 44 freedom struggles and in their national women’s movements. Their presence and voice played a significant role in changing the knowledge base, the priorities of the UN, imperialistic and orientalist notions and images of themselves, and the choice of development paths. In 1961, the formation of a third political bloc, the Non-Aligned Movement,provided a political space from which women from the South could articulate and build consensus on development ideas. The values the NAM added to women’s engagement with the UN and to changes in development ideas in the next decade would become more apparent in the International Women’s Decade, 1975–1985. During the decade of 1965–1975, events at the UN validated the inclusion of women on the agenda that had been initiated in the earlier era and women’s adoption of the world body as a space in which they could do good work. Ideas women introduced into the UN in its earliest years were developed further during this period. They also added new concepts, such as the notion that rights are inseparable, or the indivisibility of rights, hence the idea of development, to the framework of rights. Despite the fact that there were very few women in policymaking positions in the UN, the women on the CSW used strategic alliances and the institutional mechanism of global conferences to further their agenda. The goals and rhetoric of the commission became strongly embedded into the UN system and the development discourse. In addition, the work of the CSW received a valuable injection of new ideas from the strong presence and voice of the newly liberated countries.5 Interthematic connections were made. Intellect, energy, and commitment combined to create a new momentum that made it possible to construct a long-term plan for the advancement of women (resolution IX of 1968), the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (DEDAW, 1967), and the first UN-sponsored world conference on women at Mexico City (1975). Development cooperation propelled the issue of women in development (WID) to the world stage. Ignited by the work of Ester Boserup, the profile of women as productive workers forced donor agencies to look at women’s programs as a worthwhile area of investment, even if this view was instrumental and looked at including women in development programs as a means to an end. Women continued to make skillful use of UN space to generate knowledge through inclusive processes and to garner support for campaigns. The existence of autonomous spaces for women in the world body helped them make crucial connections and underscored the integral link between ideas and appropriate institutions in the arena of social transformation. Women also drew responses and reactions to gendered aspects of war and peace from the UN for the first time in its history. [3.236.139.73] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:11 GMT) Inscribing Development into Rights, 1966–1975 45 Building the Institutional Architecture DEDAW In...