At a women’s roundtable during the 12th World Urban Forum (WUF12) in the Egyptian capital, speakers discussed financing and housing issues and emphasized building partnerships to provide adequate housing and empower women at the local level.
These themes were measured on the scale of the Beijing Platform for Action, the landmark global agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment adopted by UN member states in 1995. Its objectives overlap with some of the key issues facing this year’s Forum, such as women and poverty or women and the environment.
‘Starting at Home’
Speaking to UN news after attending the roundtable meeting, Maymuna Mohd Sharif, mayor of Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia’s special envoy for sustainable urbanization, said that although women make up 50 percent of the world’s population, “we are not included in the resolution.” Not even on issues like climate change, where women are the most affected.
Maymuna Mohammed Sharif, former head of UN-Habitat, the UN agency that organized the biennial forum, said, “When we start working to address their needs at the ‘home or local’ level, the role of women is so that leaders at all levels should actively involve women in decision-making.”
‘Software and Hardware’
Maymuna Mohammad Sharif stressed the need to take a holistic approach to society to achieve the goal of “leaving no person or place behind”. Two components are needed to support women’s participation, she said: “software and hardware.”
In this context, she said, “software” refers to moral support that can open up “access for women to education, government services, employment or even housing.”
As far as “hardware” is concerned, Maymuna Mohd Sharif noted the role of governance and decision-making across Malaysia, including Kuala Lumpur, to include women’s participation not only during strategy formulation but also in actual policy formulation.
‘Women Can Lead’
Sarah Syed, a 20-year-old climate justice activist from Toronto, Canada, told UN News that so far WUF12 looks like it will be “a strong start”.
“We need to keep this momentum going to ensure we have a concrete plan to engage young people in the conversation by the end of the World Urban Forum,” added Sarah Syed.
She stressed that, “We need to invest in the education of young girls, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We need to invest in businesses and entrepreneurs with startups by young girls and women. It also needs to ensure that they have proper access to financing and funds to scale up the plan.
Sara Syed said, leadership is also important for this. She said women should be able to lead their local communities, governments and urban planning councils.
Safe place in Afghanistan
Besides focusing on local-level action, Wednesday’s roundtable discussion also considered the opportunities and challenges women face in cities and towns.
Stephanie Luz, country program manager of UN-Habitat’s office in Afghanistan, said the discussion highlighted strategies to increase women’s access to essential services.
“Ensuring women’s access to certain public spaces is very important,” Stephanie Luz told UN News. “But they also need to have access to adequate housing, because if you spend a lot of time at home, you need a home where you can feel safe.”
He cited as an example a UN-Habitat project in the capital, Kabul, where the agency worked with communities on a public space project in an informal settlement.
This informal settlement is located on a steep hill and there is no road to reach it. While creating it, no consideration was given to disaster risk tolerance.
She said UN-Habitat worked closely with community leaders and consulted with both men and women, “to determine how to create a public space that is gender-sensitive and allows women to use that space as well.”
zero ‘Garbage City’
According to Ghana-born Betty Osei Bonsu, the country manager of the Green Africa Youth Organization in Uganda, other issues raised by the participants included empowerment, equal opportunities and inclusion.
He told UN News that his organization’s projects focus on three key issues: climate change, disaster risk reduction and the circular economy.
“We are here to promote our biggest project, the Zero Waste Cities Project,” she enthused. Cocoa husks are used to make soap.
In addition, they help women and girls become self-reliant through beekeeping and support the production and distribution of green products locally.