NEW YORK (October 17, 2012)– On October 16, 2012, UN Major Groups were invited to speak during a Second Committee Special Panel discussion on “Conceptualizing a Set of Sustainable Development Goals”. Speaking on behalf of the Women’s Major Group (WMG), WEDO’s Eleanor Blomstrom highlighted the importance of moving beyond the rhetoric of goals and targets to enable a transformative agenda which can truly work for both sustainable development and gender equality:
“We want a transformative agenda that addresses discrimination in access to and control of services resources; and violence against women in its many forms. But what does a transformative agenda mean? It means going
beyond the rhetoric of gender mainstreaming. Bella Abzug used to say, we don’t want to be mainstreamed into a polluted stream. Years later, the idea is unfortunately still very relevant. We’re mainstreaming rights, equality,
sustainability, etc., into streams that don’t flow anywhere.”
Click here to read full Speaking Notes for Intervention.
