THE EARTH TIMES
AUGUST 2, 1993
Women gain at multi-purpose parley
BY ASHALI VARMA
The UN Economic and Social Council concluded its 1993 session in Geneva on July 29
after considering a series of measures designed to improve human rights conditions–especially for women—and other issues such as disease control.
A key focus of the six-week meeting was planning for the forthcoming World Summit for Social Development, scheduled to be held in Denmark in 1995.
UN Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali told the meeting the Summit should be seen as one in a series of landmark meetings being organized by the UN in this decade aimed at “spelling our a new vision in which the well-being of the one contributes to the stability and health of the other.”
Other meetings in the cycle include the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de- Janeiro, the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing.
“The outcome of the Social summit should be, quite simply, a global compact for the elimination of poverty,” Boutros-Ghali told ECOSOC. “It must spell out the action to be
taken, identify responsibilities and define commitments at the local, national and global levels.”
Boutros-Ghali emphasized the need for redistribution, social protection and integration if a policy of social development was to be implemented at the summit.
In other matters, ECOSOC:
- Endorsed the merger of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advance of Women (INSTRAW) and the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM);
- Endorsed a system-wide medium-term plan for the advancement of women for the period 1996-2001 as a general framework for the coordination of system wide efforts;
- Recommended the adoption by the UN General Assembly of a draft Declaration, calling for the elimination of violence against Women;
- Endorsed the necessity of a multisectoral approach to control malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and AIDS, and discussed the role women in the economic development of the worlds less industrialized countries.