We have been calling on governments, institutions, entrepreneurs and practitioners to examine the direction in which science and technology is taking us, to ask whether it is really the most desirable path to sustainable development, and to take appropriate action.
In a recent interview, OFAN's Programme Coordinator, Josephine Beoku-Betts, outlines the advocacy process so far, OFAN's achievements, strengths and weaknesses, and the lessons learnt:
One of the objectives of formalizing the association between groups and individuals involved in gender, science and technology issues was to strengthen their capacity for advocacy. This we have been relatively successful in doing through the s haring of expertise and knowledge. Our membership includes grassroots NGOs, as well as professional groups and agencies who have been able to benefit from one another.
Network members can be found scattered around the world. There is an obvious advantage in this - we have been able to lobby in all regions, successfully getting gender, science and technology included on some regional agendas.
The varied nature of OFAN's membership has also facilitated our participation in meetings of grassroots women's groups as well as professional groups, and networking with critical organizations not directly involved in OFAN.
A most important advantage of formalizing the network is the lobbying and advocacy experience of our members. From the past experience of the member organizations of the Once and Future Action Network we are able to appreciate how much work goes into influencing the policy process in all its different stages.
As a result, we have been able to formulate strategies appropriate to each stage of the process.
Through the coordination of the OFAN Secretariat, and the support of network members such as IWTC and UNIFEM, our members have been lobbying through mass and specialized media, local meetings, workshops on science and technology, expert group meetings, and participation in regional and international NGO Consultations and United Nations Meetings.
In Jamaica where we have our Secretariat, for example, we have hosted a local meeting on science and technology. There were similar meetings in New York and Washington, and others will be held elsewhere, both before and after the Beijing Conference.
We have used the mass media to lobby - through interviews with both print and electronic media. The quarterly OFAN Newsletter is another of our advocacy tools. Along with our "Call for Participation" flyer, it is widely circulated.
Our public and private e-mail conferences have also been very useful in enabling us to share information with member organizations as well as non-members.
Information from these workshops was incorporated into our science and technology recommendations for the NGO Amendments to the Platform for Action for the individual regions.
At the regional level also, OFAN members identified and lobbied the delegates to the official UN meeting to promote our interests and concerns in drafting the Regional Platforms for Action. We have had limited success in this. Although all the Regional Plans of Action acknowledge the importance of science and technology, it is only in the Regional Platform for Action for Africa that science and technology has been specifically listed as a critical area of concern. Lobbying at the regional level has been useful too in helping us to forge links with national delegates who can lobby on our behalf at the international level.
OFAN organized briefing sessions for its members at the start and end of each day . These sessions were critical in assessing our progress and in formulating our p lan of action for the next day, and in embracing new members into the network. In addition to our own briefing sessions we also took part in those organized by the Women's Caucus and the Linkage Caucus. We used the OFAN workshop at the NGO Forum to outline the aims and objectives of OFAN to NGOs and even government delegates, thereby extending our list of members and participants in the Once and Future Pavilion at the NGO Forum in Beijing. The workshop also addressed concerns about the post-Beijing period, about developing concrete programmes to monitor the implementation of policies, and about how the shared aims and objectives of OFAN can be perpetuated in tangible forms after the Conference.
At the March 1995 UN PrepCom OFAN was able to participate in various caucus meetings - the daily Women's Linkage Caucus, the Regional Caucuses, and the Youth Caucus - at which we made presentations on the key areas of concern for science and technology. In addition, we attended and participated in some of the official plenary sessions. Of course, being observers at most of the UN meetings, we lobbied through the of ficial delegates. OFAN worked with as many groups as possible, and attended draf ting sessions at which we tried to influence changes.
Although the UN Preparatory Meeting was dominated by discussion among UN Member States on the issues to be contained in the final document, NGOs were given the chance to make presentations. OFAN got the opportunity to make official statements on behalf of the organization.
We also lobbied with the NGO document, which contained OFAN amendments for scienc e and technology in the Platform for Action. This we distributed to as many gove rnment delegates and organizations as we could.
Not having science and technology as a critical area of concern in the Platform for Action forced us to go all out in our lobbying efforts, utilizing all the talent, experience and resources available among our membership. This helped to strengthen the collaborative dimension of our work tremendously. For the first time since the Network started, I felt members were able to develop a real sense of ownership in terms of the organization, where we are going, and what we would like to accomplish.
In terms of capacity building, we hope that individual member organizations are being strengthened and will continue lobbying on their own. In fact, we know this has been happening already. For example, Winrock International and AWIS have continued to hold regular local meetings on women, science and technology in the Washington D.C. area of the U.S. Similar meetings are scheduled to be held in Jamaica, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.
The lobbying process has facilitated our meeting and networking with organizations who aren't OFAN members and enabled us to share ideas and experiences, to our mutual benefit. We hope our lobbying efforts have gained us much credibility as an organization.
Our advocacy at local levels have proved weak so far. To correct this, we aim to start influencing national delegations. Another major problem which we faced was that we did not have enough persons to lobby at the UN level. We need many more persons, skilled and experienced. We have a greater chance of success if we have more people representing our interests in the different caucuses and committees. We need to influence the national policy formulation process in particular - in addition to attending regular meetings, we need to have members in the national committees, drafting national amendments.
At the March 1995 PrepCom, the efforts of persons like Ruth Lechte of World YWCA, Helen Appleton and Jane Scobie of ITDG and Winnie Byanyima of Uganda went a long way in establishing our presence in the regional caucuses and the drafting committees. We definitely need more of this type of involvement. There is also a need for more involvement from organizations based in the Third World, especially grassroots organizations involved in the application of science and technology.
Another lesson we learnt was the need for lobbying documents which are short and concise - they are more likely to be used.
We have started to look at different models for the perpetuation of our vision in the post-Beijing period, but nothing has been finalized as yet. Of course, we will be looking at the establishment of guidelines for monitoring the implementation of science and technology policies coming out of the Beijing Conference, and the preparing of examples of simple but concrete programmes that can be applied in our respective regions.