WOMEN ENVIRONMENT TASK FORCE

The Heinrich Boell Foundation Asia supports activities of the Women Environment (WEN) Task Force, a subset of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development. The WEN Task force has identified the WSSD process as its priority for the 2002, it will support lobbying on women's participation in environmental decision-making, women and toxic wastes, women and food security. It bases its lobbying activities on research findings derived from the Collation of environmental laws project, Impact of globalisation on food security as well as on experiences and information from the network.

The WEN Task Force has been actviely involved in the Asia Pacific Regional PrepComm as well as the Civil Society Forum prior to the PrepComm. One major focus there was to ensure that gender would be regarded as a cross-cutting issue rather than being subdued under the major group women section as it was planned in the draft outcome.

WEN will also organise a women's workshop during the Jakarta People's Forum in the context of the fourth WSSD PrepComm in Indonesia, May 2002. At the WSSD in Johannesburg, the WEN Task Force will participate in the NGO Forum and the multi-stakeholder dialogues.

WEN is also closely working on the process of the Women's Action Agenda.