Putting Gender on the Agenda: WIDE and the Lomé Negotiation

Abstract

WIDE, Network Women in Development Europe, is a European network of national networks from European countries. Members of these national networks are NGO workers, activists and researchers working on women’s rights and gender and development issues. WIDE began in 1985 following the UN World Conference on Women in Nairobi and is involved in networking and information exchange within Europe and with women’s organisations from the South, and other Northern and Eastern countries. We carry out consultation, research, advocacy, and lobbying activities on gender and development, on women’s human rights, conflict, macro-economic and trade issues, and on alternative economics. As part of our work we follow closely European Union aid and trade policy towards Southern countries, and the Rio to Beijing UN conference agreements. As a network, we operate at a number of different levels: nationally within the EU Member States, at the EU level, and globally in relation to the UN, the World Trade Organisation and other international institutions. For WIDE, action at the national level is critical: decisions are taken regionally and internationally, for example by the EU, but action and implementation happens (or not) at the national and local levels. Agreements made regionally or globally provide excellent leverage when pressing for local or national level action. When we want to try to influence decisions taken by international institutions, such as the World Trade Organisation, again we find it more effective to work through national governments. WIDE recognises the importance of working at different levels — locally, nationally, regionally and globally, and, linking those different levels.