By: Dr. Catherine Bosshart, BPW International President (2021-2024) 

(Source:  April 1, 2024 Email) 

Dear BPW Presidents 

Dear Members 

Our first newsletter of the year 2024 is only now being published - our small team has been overwhelmed with work and has had to put the Newsletter on the back burner. We are now pleased to inform you with a Special Edition about what has been going on at BPW International. 

Today, in this Special Edition of WITH Women’s Entrepreneurship & Trade, we 

are highlighting our new Memorandum of Understanding MoU with UN Women, which will be a milestone in our future work. This partnership agreement focuses on promoting the economic participation of women. To be specific, we want to become the first international women's organization with a global network of start-up centers for female entrepreneurship, managed by our local clubs. 

Be inspired by these plans and join us as our advocacy program evolves in concrete terms. 

With all my best wishes and the knowledge that we can achieve a lot for the advancement and empowerment of Women. 

WITH Women’s Entrepreneurship & Trade 

A key factor for women's economic independence and prosperity is access to finance. We are aware that women face difficulties in accessing finance for growing their businesses. 

I am pleased to announce that BPW International has just signed a GLOBAL partnership agreement, the Memorandum of Understanding MoU with UN Women for the coming years. Global means that wherever we have clubs, we will be a partner and key player in working with UN Women on the ground. The content of the partnership agreement relates to WITH Women’s Entrepreneurship & Trade. 

 

Signers of the MoU, here in New York, March 2024: Dr Catherine Bosshart, BPW International President 2021-2024, and Sarah Hendriks, UN Women Executive Director a.i. 

This partnership agreement focuses on the promotion of women's economic empowerment and is in line with Sustainable Development Goal SDG #5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 

Specifically, we want to establish the first network of business incubators and start-up centers with a genderspecific dimension. We will thus be the first international women's organisation with a global network of startup centers for female entrepreneurs, each managed by our clubs. 

 

UN, March 2024 - Working on Fundraising: Hadia Gondji and Catherine Bosshart with Dr. Josianne Ougadogo, Burkina Faso, and 

Meral Guzel, Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator at UN Women 

Business Incubators and Start-up Centers 

In the first six months, a train-the-trainer program based on the GIZ (German Society for International Cooperation) program will be implemented to train women entrepreneurs, members of BPW, to become professional coaches (with certification). They will then work with the women on site and support them with the topics they need, be it accounting, marketing, language, or dealing with banks and other investors. 

Donors 

To achieve this, the partnership agreement proposes to leverage partnerships with multiple donors to set up specific support solutions, including coaching and mentoring programs, with a focus on improving the trading capacity of women-owned SMEs. 

 

New York at the UN, March 2024, Working on Fundraising - With Meral Guzel (left), Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator at UN Women, and Setcheme Jeronime Mongbo, UN Coordinator for Sierra Leone 

In concrete terms, this means that in a first phase with investors, we are targeting an initial fundraising of USD 3.3 to 4.9 million to support the establishment and development of women's business centers in strategic locations around the world where UN Women and BPW Federations or Clubs are present. 

In order to strengthen this fundraising campaign, BPW International will now also negotiate directly with the UN Women headquarters in New York for GLOBAL funds with large institutions such as the World Bank. We are thinking of framework agreements worth several million US$ to strengthen this strategy and to be able to make a financial contribution to projects via BPW International for BPW Federations or Clubs that do not have sufficient funds for their programs. 

 

Senegal, October 2023 - Start of the pilot program in Senegal with Philippe Lambert, Helena Ruiz, UN Women Regional Coordinator in Dakar, Senegal, and Dr. Catherine Bosshart 

If a BPW Federation or a Club is interested in a program to establish a business incubator for women entrepreneurs, it can contact UN Women's regional and national offices through this Memorandum of Understanding. The partnership with UN Women facilitates collaboration with other UN agencies or international donors to set up a program. BPW Clubs will also not have to wait for calls for proposals or go through a selection process. 

How to proceed 

For now, we have agreed to launch a pilot program across West and Central Africa. 

At the moment, three pilot programs for the establishment of business incubators in the region have been launched: one was proposed by UN Women in Sierra Leone in cooperation with our club in Freetown, other projects in Niamey in Niger and in Kinshasa, RD Congo. More projects are on the agenda (currently over 16) for other countries in the region where there is a UN Women office. 

 

Women Entrepreneurship Expo 2024 

Another important goal is to contribute to the organization of the Women Entrepreneurship Expo. This is a program launched and financed by UN Women, for which the women's business centers form the basis. 

The Memorandum of Understanding also provides for the Expo 2024 to be held in Africa, and for women entrepreneurs in trade to be the focus of the Expo. BPW International will thus become one of UN Women's most important partners in the organization of the Expo, alongside ITC, ILO, and UNDP. 

Expo 2024 will therefore seek to leverage the results, achievements and impact of the new start-up centers and womenspecific programs to accelerate women entrepreneurs' access to trade, with a particular focus on the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): a great opportunity to promote women's trade. 

The organisation of the Women 

Entrepreneurship Expo 2024 will build on the experience of the three previous editions, which each time brought together over 50 countries on multilingual platforms and mobilized hundreds of women entrepreneurs. Each year, there are more than 100 stands of women entrepreneurs, attracting several thousand visits over three days, more than 300 face-to-face meetings and networking events and hundreds of networking requests. 

With this partnership agreement, all BPW Clubs and Federations become key players in the Women Entrepreneurship Expo. 

 

New York, March 2024 - Working on Fundraising: Hadia Gondji, RC Africa, Dr. Catherine Bosshart, Consultants Philippe Lambert, and Tewodros Yilma 

Conclusion 

Finally, I would like to remind you that this partnership agreement with UN Women relating to WITH Women’s Entrepreneurship & Trade applies to all BPW Federations and Clubs worldwide as of today. 

You can download theMemorandum of Understanding MoU with UN Womenhere, and we will set up a team to coordinate this new dynamic. 

If you have a question about this project and require further information, please contact me.

By: Susan O’Malley, IFBPWC UN Representative NGO CSW/NY, Chair ex officio  Professor Emerita, City University of New York 

 UNChair@nfbpwc.orgsusanomalley4@gmail.com  

RE: Oral Statement during the CSW68 General Discussion, 

Widows for Peace Through Democracy. Margaret Owen, 

President, read by Susan O’Malley, UN Representative IFBPW 

19 March 2024, UN Conference Room 4 

If we are serious about reducing poverty, we must address the extreme poverty of uncounted millions of the world’s widows, since it is their poverty that is a root cause of 

extending and expanding poverty down through the generations, impacting negatively on their children’s futures. Extreme poverty and inequalities are the fuel of conflicts and instability and frustrate efforts towards peace. Armed conflicts cause women to suffer most, especially those who are widowed.  

There is no hope of achieving the SDGS, if we continue to ignore the status of widows. Widowhood is the most neglected of human rights and gender issues and has rarely been mentioned in the CSW Agreed Conclusions. (Currently Rev 2 for CSW68 does mention widows with “single, divorced women” on page 25!) Widows are of all ages, from child widows to young mothers, and elderly grandmothers; (we must dispel the myth that widows are mainly elderly women, supported lovingly by their families).  Especially in the global south and in conflictafflicted countries, widows remain uncounted and their voices unheard. Nor is attention paid to uncounted “halfwidows” (the wives of the missing, or forcibly disappeared) whose lives may be even more wretched than those of formal widows, since there is no closure for them; they live in legal limbo.  

The number of widows worldwide is increasing exponentially, due to unsolved armed conflicts, genocides, civil wars, terrorism, natural disasters, the earlier mortality of males over females, and the fact that many women are married to older men. Also, COVID 19 created manymore widows since the pandemic tended to kill more men thanwomen. It is essential that data on widows is disaggregated to include “age” and “marital status”.  

Member States need to work with widows’ associations to register widows, record their circumstances and needs, ensure that they are given social protections, such as pensions, shelter, food, and that their children are educated, and that they enjoy support for their societal roles, including representation in relevant decision-making bodies.  

Across a wide spectrum of cultures, religions, ethnicities, especially in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, widows’ lives are determined not by modern domestic laws, nor international ones, but by deeply enshrined patriarchal interpretations of religion and customs.  

These dehumanize and stigmatize widows, and deny them their basic human rights to inheritance, land and property ownership, access to credit, to mobility, and decent employment. They may be subjected to appalling harmful traditional practices. Widows are often “chased off” from their homesteads, if not forced into marriage with the dead husband’s brother. They may be subject to the sexual torture of “ritual cleansing”, and if elderly, may be stoned to death as witches. Impoverished widows, made homeless, are vulnerable to many forms of economic and sexual exploitation, abandoned without the education or training to obtaindecent work.  

Research has shown that their poverty is a key driver of widows’ withdrawing their daughters from school, giving, or selling them into child marriage to older men or into the clutches of traffickers.  These young girls are fated to become child widows, vulnerable to further exploitation and abuse.  

The 2030 agenda speaks about leaving no women “left behind”. But millions of uncounted widows, of all ages, as well as “half widows” are left behind. I have been trying to get widowhood on the agenda of the CSW for over 30 years since our first international workshop on widows at the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Women’s Conference. The good news is that two years ago the GA adopted a Resolution on Addressing the Situation of Widows, Res.76 but will it be implemented? Not unless there is funding for widows’ NGOs so they may take advantage of this Resolution and urge accountability from their governments.  

Surely the desperate poverty faced by widows is a call to the Human Rights Council to appoint a Special Rapporteur on Widowhood, and for UN Women to establish a special desk for this scandalously neglected aspect of the feminization of poverty. This indifference cannot continue. 

By: Susan O’Malley
IFBPWC UN Representative 
NGO CSW/NY, Chair ex officio 
Professor Emerita, City University of New York 

UNChair@nfbpwc.orgsusanomalley4@gmail.com   

Do register for the NGO CSW68 Forum!  

It is free and all events are online. (Some events are both in person and online.) The Forum runs from March 10 (Consultation Day), the day after the IFBPW Summit (March 8-9), to March 20. It runs 24 hours each day to accommodate all time zones.  [Our NGO’s official name at the UN is the International Federation of Business and 

Professional Women, not BPW-International.] Go to the NGO CSW/NY’s webpage and 

register for the CSW68 Forum so that you will have access online to all events, including parallel events, conversation circles, booths, morning briefings, and the webpage for each event. This year there will be an Artisan Fair held at the Armenian Center. 

You can browse the website now - it is much easier than last year. The calendar of events should be posted soon.  If you have a question, go to NGO CSW/NY CSW68 to find the answer. There are many tutorials to answer your questions and to explain how to get involved with advocating for the 6 recommendations that NGO CSW is suggesting for the negotiated Outcome Document. 

The event I am organizing with Marilou McPhedran, Senator Canada, is “Addressing Poverty: Basic Livable Income Bills” sponsored by Feminist Parliamentarians and co-sponsored by the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. It is on Tuesday, 12 March, at 12:30. 

Hope to see you there on Zoom.

Embrace the possible. That’s the call of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a blueprint for a better world. We don’t have to wait for the future we want—we can create it right now. Everyone can join the global movement for change.

ActNow is the United Nations campaign to inspire people to act for the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Goals can improve life for all of us. Cleaner air. Safer cities. Equality. Better jobs. These issues matter to everyone. But progress is too slow. We have to act, urgently, to accelerate changes that add up to better lives on a healthier planet.

What happens when millions of people act together for our common future? A lot. Join the campaign to learn more— and do more.

To read more of the article, CLICK HERE.  

“We can prevail.

If we act now.

If we act together.

If we keep our promise to the billions of people whose hopes, dreams and futures you hold in your hands.

Now is the time.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres at #UNGA’s SDG Summit, where countries committed to accelerating progress on the #GlobalGoals for a better, more sustainable future for everyone.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140857

 (Source:  BPW International Facebook post of September 20, 2023; repost of United Nations September 17, 2023 post)

By: Susan O’Malley
IFBPWC UN Representative, NGO CSW/NY, Chair ex officio
Professor Emerita, City University of New York
UNChair@nfbpwc.orgsusanomalley4@gmail.com

 

The UN devoted the weekend of September 16-17 to discussing the state of the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how Member States and NGOs can scale up their attempts to fulfill them by 2030.

Many promises were made by Member States, both financial and actions to be taken. The object is to “leave nobody behind.” In fact, though, COVID has limited the progress of fulfilling the SDGs. The UN Sustainable Development Goals Report for 2023 is available on the UN website.

Attending the Action Weekend were 3 IFBPW members: Tess Mateo, Thalita Veronica Goncalves e Silva from Brazil, and Susan O’Malley. 

Tess Mateo is Senior Advisor to AQAL Capital and the United Nations on Gender and Climate; and Managing Director of CXCatalysts, which develops public private partnerships in clean energy, water, sustainable food, and health.  She is an IFBPW UN Representative.

Thalita Veronica Gonclaves e Silva, from Brazil, is a Public State Defender (lawyer), and a member of the IFBPW Human Rights Committee. 

Susan O’Malley is Professor Emerita, English, City University of NY, past chair of NGO CSW/NY, and an IFBPW UN Representative. She is also the UN Representative for Widows for Peace Through Democracy and plays the cello in the UN Orchestra.

In the photo, we are in Conference 4 at the UN just before the Closing Meeting in the ECOSOC Chamber on 17 September.  Susan is in the blue Climate Action tee-shirt because she had just come from the Eliminate Fossil Fuels March.

This photo is of Patricia L. Bradley (Women’s Missionary Society AMEC), Beth Dehghan (WomenNC), and Susan O’Malley (IFBPW) who represented many NGOs Rally.

United Nations Report By:  Susan O’Malley, IFBPWC UN Representative, NGO CSW/NY, Chair ex officio Professor Emerita, City University of New York, UNChair@nfbpwc.orgsusanomalley4@gmail.com  

On August 23, 2023, a number of NGO CSW/NY executive committee members past and present travelled by train to a Nature Preserve and Trail named for Esther Hymer in Shrewsbury, New Jersey where she lived with her family from 1941 to 2001 when she died at age 102.  It is a lovely place as you can see from the photos.  Esther Hymer was an important foremother for IFBPW, the first chair of NGO CSW/NY, and important for the formation of the UN.  We have been working on writing the 50-year history of NGO CSW/NY.  It should be completed in September.  To read more about Esther Hymer's life I recommend Esther Hymer A Bus to 42nd Street by Sylvia G. Perry and Livia M. Ricci. 

Pictured Left:  Houry Geudelekian, Ivy Koeck, Pamela Morgan, Susan O'Malley, Devan Zingler

Pictured Right: Esther Hymer Nature Preserve and Trail

 

Below is the draft of the Esther Hymer Chapter 1972-1982 for the NGO CSW/NY History.

1972-1982 | ESTHER HYMER

In 1998 on the occasion of Esther Wanner Hymer’s 100th birthday UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote, “For half a century, as the representative of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (IFBPW) at the UN, you actively promoted the concerns of women. Your untiring efforts influenced almost all of the resolutions of the General Assembly and its subsidiary bodies which affect the status of women.” The previous year SG Annan had also  honored Hymer: “Still active in promoting women’s equality, Mrs. Hymer represents the best tradition of NGO activism in the United Nations.”

Born in Chicago in 1898, Hymer marched for the ratification of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote in 1920.  Her involvement with the work of the National Committee for Lasting Peace (1942-1951) led her to the June 1945 conference in San Francisco that established the United Nations. At the conference Hymer became aware of the potential influence of NGOs. She became Director of International Relations for IFBPW and its NGO Representative to the UN for 60 years. IFBPW was granted ECOSOC consultative status in 1947.

Interestingly, there is no reference to NGO CSW/NY and Esther Hymer in Esther W. Hymer, A Bus to 42nd St. by Sylvia G. Perry & Livia M Ricci. Nor is there a reference to NGO CSW/NY in the descriptions of the contents in the 50 boxes of Hymer’s papers housed in the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge, MA.

When the International Women’s Year was set for 1975, Esther Hymer was elected Chairperson of the NGO Committee of the International Women’s Year, a position she held from 1972-1982 (Perry & Ricci, 34). In 1972 Helvi Sipila from Finland was appointed the first woman UN Assistant Secretary-General. Hymer chaired the 85-member NGO Committee on the Decade of Women. In 1975 the first UN World Conference on Women was held in Mexico City, and A World Plan of Action was adopted. INSTRAW, an Institute for Training and Research for Women, was established after the Mexico City Conference; in 1976 UNIFEM, a Voluntary Fund to Support the Decade for Women, was established. 

In 1980 at the second UN World Conference on Women in Copenhagen, which Hymer attended, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was signed by 75 Member States making it legally binding. CEDAW had been unanimously adopted by the 34th session of the UN General Assembly. 

During Esther Hymer’s 10-year term as Chair of NGO CSW/NY, she was an integral part of the NGO women’s movement to increase the representation and participation of women in the UN. From 1972-1982 NGO CSW/NY was not a membership organization with monthly meetings and the yearly NGO CSW Forum with hundreds of parallel events. NGO CSW/NY was just getting started. Esther Hymer died on April 1, 2001, at age 102.

There is a Nature Preserve and trail named for Esther Hymer in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, where Esther and her family lived from 1941.