The theme of this year’s International AIDS Conference is Universal Action Now. The purpose of the conference is to synthesize different AIDS responses—from public health sector prevention and treatment initiatives to community-based organizing. The conference is separated into three different tracks: 1) scientific, 2) community, and 3) leadership. The International AIDS Society wishes to meld initiatives in scientific-based treatment and prevention with the needs of communities. They see leadership as a broad term, encompassing grassroots leaders, as well as high-profile and elected officials.

For more information visit: www.aids2008.org

Our Peer Exchange and Conference program focus on positioning the African leaders of our Campaign as experts and opening venues for them to share their concrete strategies, knowledge and approaches to HIV and AIDS through two mechanisms. First, through an exchange with their peers in Latin American working in indigenous communities in Guatemala and Honduras who have developed their own expertise on community development (particularly in the areas of resilience building), and secondly at the International AIDS Conference itself. The Conference will also be a venue for our Latin American members to identify other community-based actors and supportive partners to launch their own organizing platforms in response to HIV and AIDS.

Our program during the conference will include:

• A satellite session on the impact of HIV/AIDS on women's access to, and control over, land, housing and other assets, with UN-FAO, COHRE and other partners: “Securing Land and Housing Rights as a Preventative Measure Against HIV/AIDS”
  Download Land and Housing Flier here
  
• A satellite session on the developmental responses to HIV and AIDS grassroots women are leading in Africa and Latin America (including home-based care):
  “Grassroots Women build HIV-resistant communities in Africa and Latin America”
  Download AIDS Grassroots Session Flier Here
• Practice-sharing and counting contributions in the Global Village
• A daily grassroots caucus
• A policy dialogue on home-based care

Download our full Conference flier here!

The theme of the Fourth session of the World Urban Forum (WUFIV) is “Harmonious Urbanization”. WUFIV will be hosted by the Government of China and will be held in the ancient city of Nanjing. Situated in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the city of Nanjing dates back more than 2,000 years and is known as the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties of China. Today, home to 6 million people, it is a rapidly growing modern city and is one of the most dynamic in eastern China.

The Huairou Commission will organize a grassroots academy and work closely together with local women’s organizations, such as the Nanjing Women’s Federation of China. A delegation representing the Huairou Commission will be travelling to Nanjing from November 29 to December 1st 2007 for further planning meetings on our participation at WUFIV.

Deadline for submission of Networking Events is March 31, 2008 . Download registration form here: http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=535&cid=5282&activeid=5030

For more information visit: http://www.unhabitat.org/categories.asp?catid=535

The provincial government of KwaZulu-Natal and UN-HABITAT hosted the International Youth Crime Prevention and Cities Summit 2008, in the city of Durban 17-21 June 2008. The objective was to prevent and reduce crime and violence in our cities, towns and villages. Designed for young people and local authorities who work with them, this four-day event enabled all participants to mobilize, to learn, to experience, to speak, and to act.

The International Youth Crime Prevention and Cities Summit was the culmination of a series of regional forums that started in June 2002 to find new ways of tackling urban youth crime and violence in Africa and Latin America. It also came from global partnerships with youth organizations which participated in the second and third meetings of the World Urban Forum in Barcelona in 2004, and Vancouver in 2006.

Durban sought to consolidate the gains made so far, review regional strategies, and initiate a series of pro-poor and pro-youth initatiatives to help attain the Millennium Development Goals agreed by world leaders. The Summit was also designed as a preparatory event for the 4th session of the World Urban Forum to be held in Nanjing, China, 3-7 November 2008.

Huairou Commission members will present their experiences in leading community-led solutions to stimulate national, regional and global change while representing seven countries from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Americas .

Speakers will demonstrate specific results from grassroots networking interventions and exemplify a range of experience in organizing and making impact from the bottom-up, including:

• coalition building between local communities and police to increase public safety in Russia,
• building the capacity of grassroots women to engage local authorities to allocate public budgets to reflect community priorities across ethnic lines in Turkey and,
• the development of community managed and financed mutual funds in India to deliver quality and affordable health services to women and their families.

The thematic issues to be addressed by this CSD are: Agriculture, Rural development, Land, Drought, Desertification, and Africa. The Division for Sustainable Development provides leadership and is an authoritative source of expertise within the United Nations system on sustainable development. It promotes sustainable development as the substantive secretariat to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and through technical cooperation and capacity building at international, regional and national levels. The context for the Division’s work is the implementation of Agenda 21, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and the Barbados Programme of Action for Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States.

The Huairou Commission will host and participate in several events that deal with the issues of grassroots women and land. Jan Peterson, Chair of the Huairou Commission, sits on the chair of the Global Land Tools Network, and we will co-sponsor and participate a number of their activities during CSD. The events we will be sponsoring/co-sponsoring are:

• CSD Learning Center Course: Grassroots Women’s Innovations to Securing Land and Housing Rights: A Tool for Sustainable Development.
  May 5 - 3-6pm - Conference Room B
  Secure access to land and housing remains essential for diverse land-based livelihoods and is a precondition for sustainable agriculture, economic growth and poverty reduction. Achieving gender equality in access to land and secure tenure plays a large part in determining women’s access to basic infrastructure, services and employment opportunities. During the course, grassroots women will present innovative strategies and tools they have pursued in order to address what impacts land and housing interventions are having on their lives. Grassroots women from the Huairou Commission network and land campaign will be leading the training as experts in the field: Esupat Ngaluwa, from the Maasai Women Development Organization, Violet Shivutse of GROOTS Kenya and Femie Duka from DAMPA in the Philippines.
• Secure Land Rights in Africa: Grassroots and ‘Legal Empowerment’ Strategies
  May 6 - 6:15-7:45 - Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium
  This side event is being sponsored by the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), in cooperation with the Huairou Commission. It, will address the issue of land tenure in Africa and present an opportunity for grassroots actors to voice their perspectives and share their experiences and community strategies to secure land tenure. Huairou Commission member Femie Duka of DAMPA will represent grassroots strategies as a panelist during the event.
• Gendering Land Tools: From Policy to Practice
  May 5 - 6:15-7:45 - Conference Room 2
  Gender inequalities in access, management and ownership of land and related resources continue to exist worldwide. It is well established that a very small percentage of women own their housing or agricultural plots, yet also widely accepted that the lack of access to land is a critical factor for the vicious cycle of poverty for women in both rural and urban areas. This side event will bring together practitioners from government departments and institutions, professional and grassroots organizations to share what can be done in practice to promote women’s rights to land and property ownership. Huairou Commission member Violet Shivutse of GROOTS Kenya will serve as a panelist during the event.

The workshop, facilitated by Groots International in partnership with Fundación Guatemala , will focus on grassroots and indigenous women’s strategies and approaches to disaster risk management and mitigation. The workshops will include up to 50 participants from 15 countries throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America who have experiences in organizing and leading communities to respond and rebuild after natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and droughts and in designing local development initiatives that reduce risk and promote resilience. Resilience building practices that will be featured during the workshop include urban food kitchens, low-cost earthquake resistant housing construction methods, coastal reforestation and soil recovery, and savings and credit groups that reduce family vulnerability during the relief and recovery process.

The meeting will produce recommendations and partnership strategies on supporting bottom-up change related to disaster risk reduction. Outcomes and recommendations from the meeting in Antigua will be presented at the ProVention Global Forum “From Grassroots to Global: People-Centered Disaster Risk Reduction.” See below for more details on the Provention Annual Forum

For more information, contact Sarah Silliman: Sarah.Silliman@huairou.org

The 2008 Annual Forum, organized in partnership with the IFRC Zonal Office in Panama, will focus on the theme “From Grassroots to Global: People-Centered Disaster Risk Reduction”. Specific objectives include: to explore key DRR issues with a broad set of partners to inform the work and direction of ProVention as well as that of our partners; to catalyze partnerships between local and regional organizations and international entities; to contribute to other ongoing DRR processes/dialogues and identify areas and forums for further follow-up. While the ProVention Forum is a global event with worldwide participation, the 2008 Forum will also bring a special focus on disaster risk issues facing Latin America and the Caribbean and will include a wide variety of partners from the region.

For more information on our participation, contact Sarah Silliman: sarah.silliman@huairou.org

The Thematic Issue for this Session will be: Financing for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, The work in the Commission will be guided by two reports of the Secretary-General on the theme, one which will identify and discuss key issues in financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women and suggest policy recommendations; and a second which will provide an overview of mainstreaming efforts related to financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women at national level.

Representatives of 5 Member Networks of the Huairou Commission will participate in the Commission on the Status of Women to ensure that grassroots women's perspectives and priorities are at the forefront of these discussions on Women's Economic Empowerment and Financing for Women's Equality.

The Huairou Commission is co-sponsoring two workshops during the first week of CSW. Click on the titles to download flyers:

• Whose Agenda Counts: Whose Agenda Counts? Grassroots Women Set Financing and Policy Priorities to Realize Pro-Poor Equality and Empowerment
• Shelter from the Storm: Securing Women's Housing, Land and Property Rights in the Struggle against HIV and AIDS

This exchange, co-sponsored by the Huairou Commission and Horizons of Friendship, will focus on land strategies, and be hosted by Uniao Nacional por Moradia Popular in Sao Paulo and the Rede Mulher & Democracia: Casa da Mulher do Nordeste in Recife. The exchange will have two components: a peer learning and exchange on organizing strategies, advocacy, and challenges and success in securing access to land and housing for women (urban and rural); and a Community Land Watch, led by and from the perspective of grassroots women organizers, on the process of inclusion and responsiveness to the issues of landless women in Brazilian agrarian reform.

Read our reports here

To learn more about this exchange, download the program and invitation (in Portugese) here:

• Program
• Invitation

In order to increase safety in communities, the ICIWF has been working and improve housing in the city of Petrosavodsk in accordance with the objectives of the 2005 World Habitat Day to eliminate slum housing. Another factor contributing to the reduction of safety in the city of Petrosavodsk is increased traffic accidents and deaths due to the condition of roads and infrastructure.

In response to these issues, the ICIWF is organizing a seminar, “Building a Safe City Friendly to Women and Children: Getting Safety Audit Tools,” which will bring together women from local communities and local officials including militia employees of the Motor Licensing and Inspection Department. The goal of the seminar will be to discuss the role of local communities and inhabitants in decreasing road accidents and increasing safety on the street and in settlements. ICIWF hopes to analyze the issues of safety using disaggregated comparisons of sex and age in order to come up with collaborative solutions for the increase of safety and security in cities.

For more information contact ICIWF Director Liza Bozhkova: iciwf@okb-telecom.net.

ICIWF website:www.owl.ru/eng/women/org001

Metropolis presents: “Dynamic Cities Need Women: Actions and Policies for Gender Equality,” held in the context of the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. The main objectives of this Forum are to promote a gender-sensitive approach and to present and discuss the best practices to empower women as citizens and decision-makers. The event will draw over 700 participants: elected representatives, executives and decision-makers from central, local, metropolitan and regional governments, as well as organizations and academics from all over the world. The Forum will discuss and debate best practices and innovative policies and their impact on gender development and equal access to services in urban areas in order to make cities and metropolises liveable for all.

Elizaveta Bozhkova of the Huairou Member Network, Information Center for the Independent Women’s Forum (ICIWF), will present practices on building a safe city through women’s empowerment and strategic alliances during the session on Urban Safety together with representatives from UCLG, the Washington D.C. police department, and Raising Voices of Uganda.

For more information on our participation write to: Sarah.Silliman@huairou.org

For more information on the conference, visit: http://www.dynamiccitiesneedwomen.eu/site/EN/01_welcome.html

This workshop is an effort to bring together various stakeholders at the national and local level especially community leaders and innovators in an effort to integrate the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) concerns and suggested actions. The workshop view as a platform to analyse experiences from the grassroots and setup a followup mechanism that integrate the recommendation in national disaster management and development policies and programmes. The workshop is being organized jointly by concerned civil society organizations and individuals who propose to form a “National Alliance on Disaster Risk Reduction" (NADRR). The NADDRR will serve as the forum for mainstreaming DRR in development policy and programming thereby reducing vulnerability level for the poor and marginalized.

For more information visit: www.disasterwatch.net

Download recommendations here!

The International conference on the state of safety in world cities, will bring together representatives from government, local authorities, law enforcers, civil society organisations including youth organisations, academic experts, the private sector, and international organisations to discuss ways of making the world’s cities safer. The conference aims to develop an international framework to support cities in their efforts to address urban crime and violence.

In preparation for the conference the Huairou Commission and its Member Networks Women in Cities International and Latin America Women and Habitat Network are conducting a global assessment of the on-going work and successful practices organizations and institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, have developed responding to lack of safety and security for women in their communities. Click here for more: www.huairou.org/campaigns/governance/activities.html

For more information on the conference, visit: www.unhabitat.org/categories.asp?catid=545

This workshop, hosted by UN-Habitat and the Huairou Commission, represents the next step in the process of gendering large-scale land tools, devising strategies for implementing the mechanism and achieving the objectives of gendering existing large-scale land tools; scaling-up existing community land tools, where appropriate; and, where there are gaps, develop new large-scale gendered land tools.

The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) is an international network that aims to establish a continuum of land rights and develop pro poor land management and land tenure tools.The goals, values and priorities of the GLTN reflect the idea that land tools should be gendered, as must the process of tool development itself.

For more information, contact Nicole.Ganzekaufer@Huairou.org

Read the initial report here

Global Land Tools Network website: www.gltn.net

Representatives of the world’s regional and local government organizations will gather for the 2nd UCLG World Congress, in Jeju, Korea, in order to focus the international communities’ attention on the crucial role local governments can play in the international agenda. The theme of this congress will be "Changing Cities are Driving our World"

For more information, visit: http://uclg2007jeju.org/contents/?mid=EN1111

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The Grassroots Academy is a conference by and for grassroots women leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean to share their experiences, knowledge and skills. Among diverse women representing grassroots organizations from rural and urban areas, we will debate the political issues that form the context for our work, such as decentralization and access to land, housing and markets

Download our full report here!
De click aqui para el informe breve de la Academia en Espanol!

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GROOTS International and the Huairou Commission will anchor the participation of grassroots women at the World YWCA's International Women's Summit: Women's Leadership Making a Difference on HIV and AIDS. Our program is designed to organize a strong delegation of grassroots home-based caregivers and includes:

• Grassroots Women's International Academy: Uniting Communities around Caregiving
• Grassroots Women's Daily Caucus - July 5, 6, 7 - 1-2pm - Amphitheatre Terrace
• Workshop: Home-based care: Turning the AIDS pandemic into a development opportunity - July 5 - 4:20-6:30 - Plenary Annex
• Workshop: Community care for orphans and vulnerable children - July 6, 11-12:30 - Delegate's Lounge
• Workshop: Women's land, inheritance and property rights in the context of the AIDS pandemic - July 7, 11-12:30 - Room 2
• Town Hall Meeting: Hosted by the Mathare Mother's Development Centre and GROOTS Kenya
• Theatrical performances, networking, resources and goods-selling at Sokoni Marketplace

For more information, contact Shannon Hayes: shannon.hayes@huairou.org

For more information on the conference, visit:
Official YWCA Summit Website

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Governments, United Nations agencies, international financial institutions, regional bodies, civil society, the private sector and the scientific and academic communities will raise awareness on reducing disaster risk, share experiences and guide the ISDR system.

The Huairou Commission organized and anchored the Women's Program at the 21st Session of the UN Habitat Governing Council. Download and read our inputs into UN Habitat's Medium Term Strategic Plan here.

Read our full report here

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Participants in the Women Land Link Africa (WLLA) initiative from 10 countries came together last week to exchange experiences and practices in enhancing the capacity of grassroots women as they work to secure women’s land, housing and inheritance rights. Through this meeting, grassroots women took one more step in forming an innovative, on the ground, pan-African, peer learning community.

Read our full report here

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The Huairou Commission is working to ensure the involvement of grassroots women's participation in land tool development initiatives such as the GLTN's Grassroots Mechanism. Our focus is to ensure that grassroots women are at the center of development, and as such, that they are active participants in land management and land tool development.

Read our full report here.

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The United Nation's 51st Commission on the Status of Women focused on the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child. The Huairou Commission organized a workshop, "Grassroots girls respond to violence and HIV/AIDS," and was active in the Linkage Caucus. Read our full report here

51st CSW Website

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The secretariat of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction is developing a "Global Network of NGOs for Community Resilience to Disasters" to strengthen its links with the NGO community and advance its efforts to reduce the impact of disasters at the community level. As part of the initiative, ISDR is holding a meeting of gender experts to address how women are affected by disasters and the role they play in resilience and reconstruction. As one of a core group of NGO network advisors to UN ISDR, the Huairou Commission was invited to join in this process. Suzanne Shende, of the Comite Emergencia de Garifuna de Honduras and Suranjana Gupta, Huairou Commission Disaster Campaign Coordinator, attended to help ensure that the agendas of this global network are grounded in the realities that women and grassroots communities face.

For more information contact Suranjana Gupta: Suranjana.Gupta@huairou.org

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GROOTS Kenya organized a series of events to anchor the African grassroots women's presence at the World Social Forum around the themes, "Turning the HIV and AIDS Pandemic into a development opportunity" and "Is Another World Possible My World?" 50 home-based caregivers from the GROOTS International network in Africa participated in the delegation.

Download the full report on the GROOTS website here

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United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the Huairou Commission hosted the Thematic Stakeholder Session on Women at the Fourth Africities Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. In the dialogue, participants discussed and debated not only how to increase but to sustain women's participation in democratic processes, how to strengthen democracy at the local level and build partnerships between grassroots and elected women.

Read the full report here

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The theme of the 16th International AIDS Conference was "Time to Deliver." The Huairou Commission AIDS Campaign sponsored a Donor Dialogue on accountability, and led a satellite session: "Grassroots Women Assert their Land and Property Rights in the Context of the AIDS Pandemic" in partnership with the International Center for Research on Women. We also participated in the Equator Initiative and UNDP's Community Dialogue Space in the Global Village.

Download our full report on the International AIDS Conference here.

Two members of the Huairou Commission's Member Network GROOTS International - the Mathare Mother's Development Center of GROOTS Kenya, and the Rwanda Women's Network Village of Hope - were honored as finalists in the Red Ribbon Award Contest. Read more about the Red Ribbon Awards here

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After a week of practice-sharing and strategizing at the GROOTS International-organized Grassroots Women's International Academy, grassroots women from over 30 countries joined NGO professionals and institutional partners to form a Huairou Commission delegation of 250 women to the World Urban Forum 3 in Vancouver, Canada. The World Urban Forum 3 was a global conference on urban sustainability hosted by UN Habitat and the Government of Canada that attracted 10,000 participants. The Huairou Commission was formally involved in planning for the World Urban Forum III as the official representative of women's participation.

Read our full report here

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The 50th Session of the United Nation's Commission on the Status of Women focused on: Enhanced participation of women and development: an enabling environment for achieving gender equality and the advancement of women, taking into account health, education and work; and equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes at all levels. The Huairou Commission organized three side events: "Strategies for partnering with local authorities in an age of global decentralization," "Power-sharing from the bottom-up: grassroots women and local authorities pioneer new decentralization strategies," and "Bottom-up solutions: grassroots women participate in post-conflict reconstruction," co-sponsored by the Women and Peace Network, the Arias Foundation and Fundacion Guatemala.

50th CSW website

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Habitatjam was a 72-hour internet "chat room" or online conversation in which anyone with access to the internet and the ability to type and understand English or French commented on urban development issues. The outcomes were fed into the World Urban Forum III, and the 70 actionable ideas that emerged from the online dialogue (10 of which came directly from the Huairou Commission and its members) can be found on the Habitat JAM website.

Read about the Huairou Commission's organizing process, inputs and outcomes here

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African members of GROOTS International and the Huairou Commission, hosted by the International Women's Communication Center organized a Grassroots Women's International Academy and led two workshops and a community caucus during this 14th ICASA. Nearly 50 grassroots participants from 14 organizations plus partners from faith-based organizations, donors and the World Bank participated in the Grassroots Academy and our other events. Focus during the Academy was on home-based care, orphan care, modes of organizing, and land and housing rights.

Read the full report here.

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This UN General Assembly focused on progress on the Millennium Development Goals. In preparation, a grassroots women's delegation joined other locally-based organizations to submit their recommendations for improvements on the MDG project during the Community Commons in June, 2005.

Read more about the Huairou Commission's work on the MDGs and at the Community Commons here

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This founding congress of Huairou Commission partner UCLG explored the role of local government in development, exchange experiences and develop strategies for the future under the title Cities, Local Governments: The Future for Development.

www.cities-localgovernments.org

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Progress report, review of work program and budget plus thematic attention to: (a) Invovlement of civil society in improving local governance; (b) Post-conflict, natural and man-made disasters assessment and reconstruction; (c) Implementing and monitoring the goal of the UN Millennium Declaration on improving the lives of slumdwellers; (d) Recommendations on decentralization and the strengthening of local authorities and (e) Strengthening United Nations Habitat and Human Settlements Foundation.

UN Habitat GC20 Website

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The 49th Session of CSW convened a high-level plenary meeting open to all UN member states and observers on the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The Huairou Commission hosted a delegation of African and Latin American grassroots women and leaders focused on AIDS responses and post-conflict reconstruction.

Beijing +10 Website

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The goals of the World Conference are: Review progress and update framework on Yokohama Strategy and plan of action; identify specific strategies; share best practices and lessons learned with the context of sustainable development"; increase awareness; increase availability of information. A special session on the tsunami disasters was also added. The Huairou Commission hosted a daily women's caucus and advocated for grassroots women's strategies for transforming disaster into development

World Conference on Disaster Reduction website

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The Huairou Commission organized a 4 day Grassroots Women's International Academy prior to the World Urban Forum. Representatives of women's collectives, NGOs and partner institutions shared strategies on partnering with local authorities. Themes included gaining access to resources, services and infrastructures, building resilience to disaster and creating women-friendly safe cities. The discussions led to policy recommendations which fed into the World Urban Forum, where the Huairou Commission led a number of Networking Events bringing women's perspectives and priorities.

WUF II Website

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