STEPS FOR EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY
- Identifying priorities: What are the major obstacles to women’s equality in your country?
- Gathering and analysing alternative information
- Preparing your Shadow/Alternative Report
- Disseminating and using your Shadow/Alternative Report
- Preparing oral statements for the CEDAW Committee’s informal meeting with NGOs
- Participation in the reporting process
- The role of NGOs in the follow-up processes
STEP 1: Identifying priorities: What are the major obstacles to women’s equality in your country?
As preparation, have a meeting with other women’s groups in your country to identify the main issues affecting women at the national level. Upon agreeing on one or more issues of concern, data should be gathered and the actual situation should be analysed. The CEDAW Convention should be used as your main tool for evaluating the steps and measures adopted by your government. You should use this information as a starting point for making recommendations on ways to eliminate barriers to women’s equality at the national level.
STEP 2: Gathering and analysing alternative information
Alternative information considered by the CEDAW Committee can be provided in various ways. Some women’s groups have preferred to submit a comprehensive report on women’s status at the national level, the result of a coordinated effort among several NGOs. In other cases, women’s groups interested in monitoring the implementation of CEDAW have agreed to divide areas of concern with other organisations and as a result, each organisation presents alternative information on a different area of concern (e.g. women’s health, women’s education, etc.)
In all cases, coordination of efforts is likely to make your advocacy more effective. Since all information provided to the Committee will contribute to the success of the review process, in order to maximise your efforts, please consider the following:
- Collect papers, laws or other documents that will provide useful data on the status of women in your country. Try to surface information on the success or failure of state action aimed at fulfilling international commitments made toward women’s advancement (e.g. obligations undertaken when becoming a party to the CEDAW Committee of other human rights treaties or those contained in plans of action/outcome documents of World Conferences such as the Beijing World Conference on Women).
- Collect information on the efficiency or effectiveness of State machinery meant to promote human rights in general and women’s rights in particular. If there are discriminatory laws in your country, it is particularly useful to bring the texts of such laws with you as well as key court decisions on women’s rights.
- Try to have a better understanding of the CEDAW Convention. Read the concluding comments that the Committee may have prepared when reviewing past reports submitted by your government. It would also be useful for you to read about the main principles of the CEDAW Convention, general recommendations and the Optional Protocol to CEDAW. Most of these documents are available here on our website and others can be provided upon request.
STEP 3: Preparing your Shadow/Alternative Report
You may decide to take any of the following approaches when organising your information and compiling recommendations on measures to be taken:
- Preparing a Shadow Report: This is possible if you have access to the government/state party report. We recommend that you try to obtain reports from your government in advance. Government/state party reports and further details on CEDAW sessions can be found on the webpage of the UN Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the CEDAW Committee’s Secretariat. < http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/index.html>. Contact DAW <daw@un.org> if you have not been able to obtain a copy of your government’s report. (See Part II for guidelines on how to write shadow report).
- Preparing an Alternative Report: This is a report written independent of the government report, where for example no government report is available. This report could be a comprehensive one touching on all the articles of the CEDAW Convention or it could be done on just one or two priority concerns identified through consultation with other women’s groups. (See Part II for guidelines on how to write shadow report).
If you already have a shadow / alternative report that had been prepared sometime ago, use this report and update the information as well as amend the report to include any recent developments made by the government, progression or even stagnation of the implementation of the rights of women in your country. Note, it is advised that you send one integrated updated report rather than two separate reports i.e. an old report and another updated report.
You can prepare your Shadow/Alternative Report in any of the six official UN languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). However, given that the majority of the CEDAW Committee members understand English, we recommend that you also prepare your Shadow/Alternative Report in English. Otherwise, ensure that you have either an English translation or an Executive Summary of your report in English available as well.
As for the Executive Summary of the Shadow/Alternative Report, we strongly suggest that you provide one, which would provide a brief overview or summary of the report.
STEP 4: Disseminating and using your Shadow/Alternative Report
There are two points at which NGOs can intervene in the CEDAW review process and contribute information on issues concerning women in their country. First is during a CEDAW pre-session, and second at the actual CEDAW session that government reports are presented and reviewed. The pre-session working group usually meets one week after the conclusion of the previous CEDAW session. For example, for countries reporting at the 35 th CEDAW session in May 2006, the pre-session for them took place at the end of the 34 th CEDAW session in January 2006 CEDAW session.
CEDAW Pre-Session
The CEDAW review process of a government report begins when a working group of the CEDAW Committee first meets to review all States parties’ reports prior to the session at which these are to be considered. During this time, the working group will also prepare a list of questions and issues relating to States Parties reports, which is then sent to the reporting States parties before the session that their reports are to be considered. It is useful for you to send information on issues that are important for women in your country to the CEDAW pre-session working group. This can assist the CEDAW pre-session working group in framing the questions it will ask your government.
If you are working on a Shadow/Alternative Report, you can extract these issues and send the information in bullet-point form to the Division for the Advancement of Women (the CEDAW Committee Secretariat). If you already have a shadow report, you can send either the Executive Summary of this report or the report itself to the CEDAW Committee via the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW). Even if the existing shadow report is in draft form and still needs to be finalized for presentation, it can be sent to DAW for the pre-session. The final report can be produced in time for the CEDAW review itself. Address all correspondence to Secretary of the CEDAW Committee <daw@un.org>. We would also appreciate it if you could cc this to IWRAW Asia Pacific <iwraw-ap@iwraw-ap.org>.
CEDAW Session
Shadow/alternative reports cannot be sent directly to the Committee members by the NGOs but rather the Division for the Advancement of Women of the United Nations has set up a system whereby we, at IWRAW Asia Pacific, forward your shadow reports to the CEDAW Committee. Therefore, once you have finalized your report, please email us your report to iwraw-ap@iwraw-ap.org. Please be sure to send us your report no later than six weeks before the CEDAW session, and we will then forward it along by post and email.
Note for international NGOs we request that you send us your reports as well as the cost of photocopying and cost of sending your report by post, to assist us with these costs that we ourselves incur. We request that you send us a postal order (not telegraphic transfer) at the same time your send us your report.
If you would like any other assistance, e.g. feedback on your Shadow/Alternative Report, we ask that you send us your draft report at least eight weeks in advance of the first day of the session. Please make sure that we receive it by that date so that you have sufficienttime to incorporate the comments and feedback given to you.
We also suggest you bring two copies of your report with you when you come to New York . This may be useful in case the CEDAW Committee member has not got their copy with them in New York and you can quickly make the required number of copies for distribution. As mentioned earlier, we also suggest you prepare an executive summary of your Shadow/Alternative Report. If possible, try to prepare copies of the executive summary and arrange for translations of this into French and Spanish in advance. Executive Summaries can be useful to support advocacy and highlight main issues in oral statements made to the CEDAW Committee.
STEP 5: Preparing oral statements for the CEDAW Committee’s informal meeting with NGOs
NGOs can voice their concerns during the two informal meetings held between NGOs and the CEDAW Committee. The first informal meeting is scheduled on the first day of the session and is for NGOs whose States are reporting on the first week. The second meeting is on the Monday of the second week of the session and covers NGOs whose States are reporting in the second and third week. The average time limit for NGO statements is 5 minutes. Depending on the time available, there could be more than one 5-minute slots per country. In case you are not scheduled to be in New York during the first day of the session, if you provide IWRAW Asia Pacific with information in advance, we will make arrangements for one of the members of the "From Global to Local" Project Team to present your statement.
In their statements, NGOs are invited to:
- Discuss the main critical points of their Shadow/Alternative Report;
- Identify specific questions the Committee could raise during the revision of the Government/States Party report;
- Present any new information that has become available since the NGO written report was submitted;
- Propose solutions to problems encountered in the implementation of the Covenant.
Government representatives are informed of the informal session with NGOs and may attend hearings as observers. They will have an opportunity to comment on the statements made by NGOs during the Committee’s consideration of their report.
STEP 6: Participation in the reporting process
As part of the consideration of a government/state party report, the CEDAW Committee engages in a dialogue with the government delegation. Committee members pose questions on the implementation of the CEDAW Convention at the national level. The questions and issues raised are based on the state party report, further information requested by the Committee to the government, and alternative information provided by NGOs.
During the dialogue between the state party delegation and the CEDAW Committee, NGOs cannot intervene, however it is useful for them to remain in the conference room to observe the dialogue. There will be informal opportunities to approach committee members. In this regard, you will be working closely with the committee member assigned as “rapporteur”, who will be the primary Committee member in charge of writing up the Concluding comments for your country.
The lunch hour of the day your government is reporting is a great opportunity for you to speak with the CEDAW Committee members and provide feedback about the dialogue between the Committee and your government. This also gives the Committee an opportunity to raise any issues that need to be raised in the remaining afternoon session. Be careful not to go for lunch with anyone else during this lunch hour, especially not members of your government delegation since this is prime time that can and should be spent lobbying the CEDAW Committee.
It is also useful to attend the dialogue between the Committee and your government because it provides you with a good opportunity to know further what are some of the positions taken by the government on certain issues and useful information during the dialogue that can be an input into your advocacy strategies back at the local level. More importantly, it is an opportunity to listen to the CEDAW Committee and how they interpret the CEDAW Convention on issues raised or areas that are developing.
At the end of its consideration of the government/state party report, the CEDAW Committee adopts concluding comments that reflect the Committee’s position with respect to the status of implementation of the CEDAW Convention in the said country. The concluding comments contain specific recommendations regarding the further implementation by the state party on the CEDAW Convention. It is important for NGOs to ensure that priority concerns are addressed in the concluding comments. They can do so by providing the CEDAW Committee with recommendations of what should be included in the Concluding Comments. This can be handed over to the CEDAW Committee on the day after they have reviewed the government/state party report, or the following day.
The concluding comments are finalized and edited, usually on the last day of the CEDAW Committee session. Soon thereafter, they are translated into and issued in all the official languages of the United Nations as a separate document. They are also placed on the website of the DAW <http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/index.html>.
STEP 7: The role of NGOs in the follow-up processes
The role of NGOs is crucial after the CEDAW Committee issues its concluding comments. They can assist by providing the CEDAW Committee with reports on follow-up measures taken by their government in response to the recommendations contained in the concluding comments.
NGOs can give publicity to the concluding comments locally and nationally, and monitor the Government’s performance in implementing the CEDAW Committee’s recommendations. NGOs reporting back to the Committee on the basis of their local monitoring and awareness-raising activities would contribute to more effective follow-up on the part of the Committee by keeping it informed of developments in the country after the consideration of the state party report.
In this regard, we hope you may consider the following:
- If you are consulting other women’s groups in preparing your Shadow/Alternative Report, inform them that they should remain organised in order to advocate for the implementation of the recommendations of the CEDAW Committee. If you are attending the CEDAW Session in New York , tell them that you will debrief them on your return as this will help to build a constituency that demands follow-up and implementation of the Committee’s views and recommendations.
- You may also keep in mind that press releases are available after each day of discussion. In this regard, we recommend you bring contact information of journalists that may be interested in publicising the reporting process. The press releases can be collected from the corridors outside the Press Room on the 3rd Floor of the UN building. Alternatively, the press release will also be available on the following websites:
1) UN News Centre - http://www.un.org/apps/press/latest.asp
(this URL avails the 30 latest press releases, including the CEDAW Session and other events taking place in relation to the UN).
2) The Division for the Advancement of Women http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
(please select the appropriate CEDAW Session listed on the bottom left of the website. The Press Releases are available at the bottom of the page of the relevant CEDAW Session).
Summary record of the dialogue between the CEDAW Committee and the government delegation is also made available on the website of the UN Division for the Advancement of Women http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/ Aside from providing a summary proceeding of the meeting, they are also authoritative documents that can be used for advocacy at the national level.
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