NGO Documents for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development 8th Session, 2000

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Women's Caucus at CSD-8:
Suggestions regarding the decision on sustainable agriculture and rural development

The Women's Caucus calls on the CSD to urge governments to implement as soon as possible the commitments under the World Food Summit Programme of Action, in particular Objective 1.3, to enhance and empower women's roles throughout the food chain in developing countries. We formally invite them to send a strong message in this sense to the forthcoming meeting of the FAO Committee on World Food Security, which will be meeting in September (12-16 September, Rome) to review implementation of Commitments 1,2,5, 7 of this Programme both by governments and international organisations.

The WFS recognises the leading role of women as architects of household food security, as well as the need to mainstream gender aspects throughout policies. We invite the CSO to adopt language in its forthcoming recommendations from this session to support and enhance all relevant WFS commitments relating to women and gender , and Invite member states to ensure that these considerations are fully reflected both in national policies, but in all bilateral and multilateral development co-operation programmes. We also invite CSO to call upon the IMF and the World Bank to redesign Structural Adjustment Programmes so that they facilitate the implementation of the World Food Summit commitments.

Finally, the Women's Caucus welcomes the initiative of the German government to appoint a Global Food Security Co-ordinator to promote world food security, and urges other governments to follow its example.