DAWN at the CBD-COP 10 People’s Forum

This report captures what four women from the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) said in two plenary sessions of the Global People’s Forum, which took place alongside the 10th Convention on Biological Diversity-Conference of Parties (CBD-COP) in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010. Speaking on development spending on environment, climate change and gender, Marina Durano discussed the decrease in aid disbursements, especially for gender and environment. The main criticism she put forward is that women’s work and responsibilities, including their relationships with the environment, remain on the margins of the dominant development paradigm. On the topic of linking conflict and militarisation with biodiversity and gender, Kumandini Samuel pointed out that while conflicts destroy natural environments, post-conflict restoration does not fulfil the need to recover biodiversity. Additionally, post-conflict agreements privilege men to administer transitional governments, thereby disabling women from contributing their knowledge to the promotion of justice and sustainable development. Gita Sen talked about production-consumption systems, arguing that these, rather than the market, are the problem. She suggested bringing together issues of biodiversity and consumption, considering how each relates to gender, and linking the human development paradigm with economic growth models in order to create good human resources for the commodities-based economy. Addressing market and subsistence economies in Africa, Zo Randriamaro asserted the importance of analysing whether the two can coexist, keeping in mind the history and political economy of the region’s market-based policies. Neo-liberalism builds on the history of slavery, colonialism and exploitation, including with regards to gender. She concluded that the co-existence of market and subsistence economies is neither sustainable nor desirable, as they have borne negative impacts on communities and the environment, especially for resource-poor small farmers and women.