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Mar 15 '18, 6:30 PM - 7:45 PM
EMPOWERING RURAL WOMEN THROUGH WATER AND ALCOHOL POLICY
S I D E E V E N T
Time: March15,2018,06.30-07.45PM
Place: Conference Room A
PROGRAM
An unexpected happy-end: A case study from Uganda
Juliette Namakusa
Country Director , International Aid
Global context of alcohol harm in women
Kristina Sperkova
President, IOGT International
Comprehensive approach to sustainable development: How women benefit
Natalia Linou
UNDP, Policy specialist Gender, Health and HIV
Time is up! Empowering women through alcohol policy
Marianne Mikko
Member of Parliament, Estonia
Side Event Rationale
Alcohol is a massive obstacle to development adversely affecting 13 out of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including gender equality and women empowerment. A comprehensive approach to reduce and prevent alcohol harm leads to enhancement of other efforts to reach the SDGs. Especially alcohol policy best buy measures are proven to have positive outcomes across multiple SDGs. Nevertheless, these cost-effective, evidence-based and high-impact alcohol policy measures are underutilized and often ignored in the efforts to promote development.
But there is a growing number of countries and civil society organizations leading the way in addressing alcohol as obstacle to development in an evidence-based and comprehensive manner.
The Republic of Botswana as well as Estonia are among the best examples. In adopting and implementing a comprehensive alcohol policy, they have chosen an integrated approach to tackling alcohol harm and promoting development, including the elevation of gender equality and women empowerment.
The International Aid Services is another example, with their exceptional work to help achieve several SDGs through addressing pervasive alcohol harm in communities in Uganda. Their work to empower women, provide access to clean water and sanitation and to improve livelihoods and community resilience especially in rural areas was seriously hampered and undermined by rampant alcohol problems.
This side event will explore lessons from a story of transformational change in local communities and combine it with lessons from the perspective of a country’s effort to promote sustainable development with the help of alcohol policy solutions.
The global context for health and development will be provided by UNDP presenting latest evidence about how women and rural women are affected by alcohol, how alcohol harm affects the 2030 Agenda and how the UN system is working with countries and communities to address this situation,
Participants representing governments, civil society, business and UN agencies will both get a comprehensive picture of the benefits of addressing alcohol harm and the opportunity to discuss and engage with innovative leaders in this policy area.
Objectives
- To raise awareness of alcohol as obstacle to development in the context of women’s Human Rights, gender equality and empowerment of rural women,
- To broaden understanding for the need of and possibilities to promoting gender equality and (rural) women empowerment through addressing alcohol harm,
- To provide concrete examples and tools and to empower more governments, UN agencies, businesses and civil society to tackle alcohol harm in their efforts for improving the conditions for women, children and the communities they live in.
