<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Aug 13, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Susan Fertig <<a href="mailto:susan@gmdtech.com">susan@gmdtech.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">David, What is the HuaiRou Commission? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">Five of us traveled as the ICA official Observers Delegation, led by then-ICAI Pres Shizuyo Sato, to the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995, and, with the others in our delegation, I led an ICA ToP workshop in HuaiRou at the Shadow (NGO) Conference there (standing room only even though we were competing in the same time slot with Hillary Clinton and/or Gloria Steinham, as I recall). So I’m very curious about the HuaiRou Commission.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Papyrus; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); ">Susan</span></b></div></div></blockquote><br></div><div><br></div><div>You'll recognize the connection immediately in this narrative from the Huairou Commission's <a href="http://www.huairou.org/history">website</a>:</div><div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-body-top">
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<div class="field-item odd"><p><br></p><p>----</p><p>The founding members and leaders of the Huairou
Commission came out of the global women’s movement, working relentlessly
to advance women’s meaningful participation in UN conferences and other
global processes. Grassroots women’s groups were largely absent from
these global processes for years. A common concern was growing among
women committed to advancing grassroots women in development that the
global women’s movement was not ensuring processes for including
grassroots women themselves in their agenda-setting and advocacy, and
that the issues poor communities were dealing with on a daily basis such
as basic services, access to food, livelihoods, water and sanitation,
etc, were not being prioritized. </p><p><i>The Women, Homes and Community Super-coalition, consisting of GROOTS
International, Women and Habitat Network, International Council of Women
and WEDO joined together at the 4th World Women’s Conference in Beijing
to ensure that issues women were dealing with in their homes and poor
communities were addressed. GROOTS International organized a Grassroots
Tent as a space for grassroots women’s organizations to gather and
share. The other super-coalition members joined GROOTS in the tent,
located in the civil society village in Huairou, a suburb of Beijing. </i></p><p><i>It was in this tent where Wally N’Dow, then Executive Director of the
UN Commission on Human Settlements (now UN Habitat) announced the
formation of the Huairou Commission. He “Commissioned” the members of
the Super Coalition to monitor Habitat II in 1996 from a women’s
perspective, and he named them the Huairou Commission. He appointed 50
women leaders to the Commission including high level women leaders
within the UN. For the first time, an organized group of women had a
central role to play in the human settlements arena.</i></p><p>Our relationship with UN Habitat remains strong as we ensure space
for women to organize and participate with a women’s voice in UN Habitat
initiatives. From its original position as an advisory body to Habitat
II in Istanbul, HC over the years has evolved into a global movement
for grassroots women’s empowerment in development cutting across diverse
themes, sectors and actors. We have grown into a partnership entity,
focusing on grassroots women taking leadership, linking them with
partners and facilitating peer learning. HC believes that a paradigm
shift needs to occur in how development policies are made and
implemented, for people and institutions to stop thinking of grassroots
groups as projects and start thinking of them as change agents and
partners in development. HC has grown to implement and model this
paradigm shift. Eventually, thematic areas of work began to emerge from
the work across different networks, and our thematic Campaigns were
developed and operationalized. The work grew from the work that
grassroots women’s groups were doing and from the joint priorities of
the Member Networks of the Huairou Commission.</p>
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</div></div></div><div>----</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>David<div><br></div><div><br><div apple-content-edited="true">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">David Dunn<br>740 S Alton Way 9B<br>Denver, CO 80247<br>--<br><a href="mailto:dmdunn1@gmail.com">dmdunn1@gmail.com</a><br>720-314-5991<br><br><br><br></div></span></span>
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