Advocacy programme: 'financing for gender equality and women's empowerment'/Programme plaidoirie: "fininancement pour l'egalite des genres et l'autonomisation de la femme".

• Position: News From FEMNET Secretariat/NOUVELLES DU SECRETARIAT DE FEMNET - UN Commission on the Status of Women

Every year, FEMNET facilitates and organizes the African Women's Caucus during the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). As a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the CSW is the principal global policy-making body solely dedicated to prepare recommendations and reports on promoting gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.

This year, over 5,000 women's rights activists participated in the 52nd Session of the CSW which was held from 25th February to 7th March 2008 under the theme "financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women". Stakeholders and partners drawn from governments, UN agencies, NGOs, CSOs, CBOs, donor communities and women's movement met to discuss and evaluate progress made on gender equality, identify challenges and formulating concrete action plans and policies for national, regional and global implementation.

The African Women's Caucus proved to be successful than previous ones, thanks to prior planning and mobilizing activities spearheaded by various women's rights organizations, FEMNET being one of them. Again, the cooperative spirit amongst the 300 participants enabled successful Lobbying among members of the Africa group, as well as effective participation in the global civil society Linkages caucus. Two statements were prepared by the Caucus on the themes of the CSW: 'Financing for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment', the review theme of 'Peace and Security', and the upcoming theme of 'HIV and AIDS'. The sentiment of the Caucus was however that the final agreed conclusions of the CSW were weak, in spite of the lobbying efforts. In order to better influence the final agreed conclusions in the future, the Caucus will work towards ensuring that expert groups and panels held prior to the CSW include experts whose work to reflect the Caucus members' concerns.

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Notably at the CSW, the Campaign for a stronger Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) was officially launched and over forty countries expressed their support through their national and regional statements. The GEAR campaign seeks an independent, women-specific agency with adequate stature, resources, operational capacity in the field, and a high level Leadership to drive the gender equality agenda, including financing for gender equality.

FEMNET will serve as the African Focal point for the GEAR Campaign to popularise and coordinate activities for the campaign in...