A Short Progress Report
Since the Meeting in Casablanca January 12 to 15, 2007
Shubha Chacko

Progress made to take the Casablanca agenda forward as of July 16th, 2007

This is a short report that seeks to list some of the forward motion that has been achieved on some of the key areas of intervention that was flagged at the Casablanca meeting as priority for future plans. Please note this only reflects the avenues explored by the informal Secretariat of the Casablanca group that was held by Devaki Jain and Shubha Chacko from Jan 2007 onwards

1. Interventions at inter-governmental spaces

a. Non-Aligned Movement: Devaki Jain met with the Ambassadors of the NAM Troika and has been able to input into the agenda of Casablanca that the focus for women of the South is to bring back issues of Economic Development and their location in the economic sphere and the protection of those rights. The suggestion to take up "Women's Work and South-South Cooperation" as the theme for the proposed NAM Ministerial Meeting has met with a favourable response. She has received support from the Indian government on this. The idea that India hosts the meeting has been mooted but this decision is left to the Indian Government. Tremendous support has been received for this from Ms. Zanele Mbeki who opened the door to advice on the status of the forthcoming conference. Contact has also been made with Ms. Magalys Arocha Domiquez of Cuba who is a leader with the Cuban Women's Federation (Federacion de Mujeres Cubanas)

b. The NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women: Devaki Jain has been nominated to the Advisory Committee by the Government of India. While the final decision on this by the institute is awaited, this will offer an opportunity to strengthen the research and knowledge base of NAM vis-à-vis women and can become a channel to allow the "advise" of the women's movement into the NAM space

c. Commission on the Status of Women Carolyn Hannan has been supportive and said that theme for the CSW meeting of 2008 that has been chosen is 'Financing for Development' and therefore the Casablanca groups agenda of raising macroeconomic issues would fit into this as a way of broadening the issue. This may also fit into the idea of emerging themes that they have. But the proposal has to come via governments. Devaki has requested Zanele to try via Republic of South Africa; while the Ministry of External Affairs (Government of India) has also been approached in this regard.

d. UNDP: The Expert Group Meetings convened by the Gender Unit of UNDP on Poverty and Gender; and on Democratic Governance had invited Hope Chigudu and Devaki Jain. Later at Essex University on Gender Equality, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction with partnership with Diane Elson. At this point Devaki Jain suggested to Winnie Byanyima, Director of UNDP Gender Team to consider a Round Table at CSW which space to rethink the gender framework and thrust areas for poverty eradication. Winnie Byanyima has responded positively and offered to organise such a Round Table with the Casablanca group at the CSW 2008 or any other major UN event, with financial support. This has to be now followed up.

e. UNEP: Since one of the themes of the heading was water, contact was made with Mr. Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP proposing that UNEP with all its knowledge and international work, would call a meeting on women and water, as a way to flag the close connection as well as to mobilise the women's movement to be the vehicle for influencing water use policies. We have had a response saying they await a new gender advisor who is to join the team and August 2007 and this agenda can be pursued subsequent to that .

f. South Centre: The idea of exploring the "state of the state" was taken up with Prof. Yash Tandon of the South Centre. They has also shown interest in a collaboration; though they also indicated that they their human and financial resources are limited. This needs to be taken further

g. Other organisation that have been approached at UNEP, ILO, UNRISD and UNESCO. There has been some interest but we need to concretize how we could take this ahead

2. Intervention at the international fora/organisations
a. Inter Parliamentary Union: Kareen Jabre of IPU has been kept in the loop from the beginning and has now offered that Devaki Jain make a presentation in a meeting they will have in November to discuss their theme and she would like to have our group reassemble alongside the Commission on Status on Women for the IUP in March 2008

b. World Congress of Rural Women: The presentation by Devaki Jain and Yassine Fall both highlighted the Casablanca message to this audience

c. Society for International Development: At the South Asian Conference the paper that Devaki Jain and Shubha Chacko wrote again flagged the Casablanca message and SID has offered to support it to take it further. This needs to be followed up

3. Website and Virtual Presence : The website was created and launched at the Casablanca meeting. Subsequently it has been redesigned, maintained, updated regularly by Heike Staff. Now there are questions of linking the site with other sites, on creating some interactive space on the site and how to take it further.

4. In terms of ideas - Two members of the Casablanca group Solita Collas Monsod along with Devaki Jain attended an International Seminar on Mainstreaming Studies which was held in Goa on 24th and 25th of May 2007. The conference was hosted by a group of agencies - UNDP, World Bank, Ministry of Women and Child, Government of India, partnered with a civil society organization called Center for Development Alternatives (CFDA). Here the how unpaid work is being "counted" and how national accounts are being restructured with those values for quite a number of years in the Philippine

5. Moving Forward
An opportunity presented itself for a reunion of some of the Casablanca group to meet at the World Congress on the Rural Women Yassine Fall, Nombinso Gasa and Devaki Jain. The decision that the 8th International Conference Engendering Macroeconomics and International Economics between July 20-22, 2007 at Istanbul that some of the participants were anyway invited for; could be a site of a reunion was discussed. There we could move further on building a concept paper. It was also proposed that the discussion of the future plans and the modalities of the transferring the India based Secretariat to Awomi.

We have attempted to get as many of the real, virtual and supporters of the Casablanca group together in Istanbul. » See the Istanbul agenda

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