One of the key components of the Beijing Platform for Action, which is crucial for the achievement of other action points is the mobilisation of sufficient resources for gender equality programmes.

The crafters of the of Platform for Action who emphasised on the need for increased funding, were aware that without governments, donors, civil society and financial institutions mainstreaming gender in their budgetary process and allocating or redirecting resources in a gender sensitive manner, the plan would come to nought.

Women at CSW54 are busy rallying delegates and lobbying their governments to support the adoption of a resolution they say will play a critical role in the realisation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals before 2015.

Presented by the government of Columbia and reinforced by NGOs, the resolution titled Women’s Economic Empowerment, calls on member states to take radical steps and commit themselves to far reaching actions that would have substantial benefits to the women.

Even as women at this Beijing+15 Review forum push their governments to adopt actions to advance the cause of gender empowerment, one can easily read on global faces the massive apprehension about the future of funding for gender programmes.

Recent developments in countries that have traditionally supported gender programmes in Africa and Asia is sending a strong signal of a troubled future. In the Netherlands, a country known for providing funding to its NGOs that in turn support gender related programmes in Africa and Asia, the situation is worrying.

Today marks 100 years since the world conceived the idea to be celebrating the International Women’s Day. It also marks 15 years since the world came together in a clarion call that women’s issues are global and universal. The call was punctuated by the Platform for Action, a powerful agenda which had carefully developed strategies for the empowerment of women.

Today, however, goes down the annals of the United Nations history as the day when Ms Esther Murugi Mathenge, Minister for Gender and head of the Kenyan delegations to the Beijing +15 review conference in New York called for a change to the dates when the Commission on the Status of Women meeting is held, to allow member states mark the day in their home countries.