Report of Jacqui Te Kani of the Mäori Women's Welfare League

Very early in the conference tensions between Western delegations and conservatives led by the Vatican and supported by Catholic and Muslim nations threatened to re-open battles over abortion and family relationships.

The General Assembly plenary meeting was provided for the heads of states or their delegated spokespeople to provide reports pertaining to progress made in the implementation of the 12 critical areas of concern in the Beijing Platform for Action, and further actions and initiatives for overcoming obstacles to the implementation of the Beijing Platform For Action.

The presentations accorded an opportunity for participants to assess the commitment of differing governments to the advancement of the document.

It appeared all governments have attempted to implement the platform but there is still much to be achieved.

I went to some meetings of the Indigenous Women's Caucus and saw that indigenous women continue to struggle for recognition. In the main, indigenous women had no opportunity to be part of the General Assembly outside of NGOs. The continued obstacles faced by indigenous women in accessing and participating in politics and decision-making needs to be addressed with urgency.

I attended a workshop on women's empowerment and microfinance organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNIFEM. The main objective was to identify the constraints limiting the full empowerment potential of microfinancing and to come up with suggestions for governments, associations and other civil society groups on how to remove these.

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Two concepts which had been adopted to benefit women were tontine and mutual guarantee. Tontine involves the creation of a revolving lending fund and credit accumulating from savings. It allows members to save small amounts of money while also providing funds for businesses. The system is totally controlled by individual subscribers and interest rates are minimal.

Mutual guarantee involves cluster groups of women in business using their combined collateral to leverage bank loans. This system invests the credit risk with the group as opposed to an individual and women can be lent small amounts or provided with grants to help them into businesses.

Both these systems have created many opportunities for women in poor countries and are similar to our credit unions and the "Be Your Own Boss" community employment project.

At a session with a number of African women, many claimed they are still subject to the dual discriminations of race and gender, as well as facing multiple oppression based on age, disability, class and sexual orientation.

They reported some governments have failed to remove the barriers and obstacles to achieving the promises of the Platform for Action, but that a number of strategies have been developed to lobby and gain equality.

There was a session covering the relationship between NGOs and government representatives which saw NGO representatives challenging their government counterparts with diluting the Outcomes Document and delaying the advancement of this. The government representatives responded by giving an account of the negotiations and assuring the NGOs that while progress was slow, the end result would be an advancement of the Platform for Action.

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