Foreword

"The NGO Committee on the Status of Women has been essential in breaking traditional frontiers and in changing the course of a complex and delicate debate on gender equality. It is in this Committee where one hears that in a society where a women has never been discriminated against, exploited or abused, denigrated, or subject to violence, she will give birth and life to communities and nations - and will construct a future - without violence, discrimination, abuse or denigration. It is also here in this Committee where one understands that the future debate on gender and development will not be located only at the surface of our needs or material desires (though essential) but at the most profound level of our existence and human transformation: a transformation that must not become a source of more gender inequality but become a human compass to guide the humanization of development thinking and practice.

The catalytic role of this Committee is significant in finding solutions to issues on women/men, and on their relative rights and aims, as seen as the result of a different paradigm from the one that has indeed created existing inequalities. And it is in this Committee where we have the real space to bring these issues. For me, real gender-equity-induced change will take place if we focus on the most subtle (deep) foundations a of a gender equal society. This is the level of values and the level of human inclusion where women and men play a complementary role. Here, feminine energy becomes the essence of human destiny. This energy is to life what the lay lives are to Planet Earth: All in one and One in all. Hence I wish the NGO Committee on the Status of Women of Geneva to continue their role and encourage it to bring to fruition all of its goals at the international level."

"Alfredo Sfeir Younis"
Geneva Special Representative to the UN and the
World Trade Organization,
World Bank Geneva