Three questions to Ludovica Anedda, from the NGO Care France

Ludovica Anedda is an Advocacy officer on gender equality for the NGO CARE France. She leads advocacy campaigns to ensure that France’s foreign policy is as feminist in action as it is in discourse. She played a key role in coordinating the Women 7 movement in 2019, as part of the French presidency of the G7. This movement obtained ambitious and feminist commitments from the G7 countries, such as the creation of the Support Fund for Feminist Organizations in in France. In 2021, Ludovica Anedda is closely following the Equality Generation Forum process at the French and international levels. With several civil society partners, she is also leading the #stopviolencesautravail (#stopworkviolence) campaign to get France to ratify Convention 190 of the International Labour Organization against violence and harassment at work.

A few weeks before the Generation Equality Forum in Paris and on the occasion of the launching of the website genderexperts.org, Ludovica Anedda explains to us the advocacy carried out by CARE France in the field of gender equality, particularly in the context of the Forum.

Expertes Genre : What do you think are the central issues of advocacy for gender equality in developing countries today? How does this advocacy relate to the other issues addressed by CARE France?

Ludovica Anedda : In the context of the global pandemic, the empowerment of women and girls is a major issue. The Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated existing gender inequalities. More than 126 million women work in the informal sector, such as domestic work, and have no access to real social protection. This is not acceptable! As part of the Generation Equality Forum, CARE International was selected as one of the champions of a multi-actor coalition on economic justice and rights to propose and implement solutions to these issues.

Economic justice is about the right of women and the most marginalized groups to a safe workplace, free of violence and harassment. Today, one in three countries does not have legislation specifically prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace. However, there is an international convention, Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization, which all countries, including France, must ratify and apply at the national level with legislative reforms. The ratification and application of this convention would make it possible to respond to several issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic:

• Fighting the « shadow pandemic » of gender-based violence;
• Protecting workers in the formal and informal sectors;
• Address the impact that domestic violence has on the lives of victims, including their participation in the world of work and, as a result, their economic independence.

Since 2018, CARE has been mobilizing in all regions of the world, with NGOs and feminist associations as well as trade unions to carry this specific advocacy.

CARE’s advocacy also covers humanitarian and climate crises with a central focus on the gender approach. For example, we advocate on the issues of « women, peace and security », as well as on the need to support the essential role of women and girls in the resilience of communities to climate change. Indeed, it is crucial that governments do everything possible to ensure that women are systematically involved and heard in climate-related decision-making processes, from the local to the international level, but also that women’s associations receive more financial support for their projects addressing climate change.

we want concrete commitments to gender equality that can make a difference in the long term »

Ludovica Anedda, Advocacy Officer for Care France

• Beyond the advocacy carried out within CARE France on issues related to gender equality in developing countries, how do you perceive the integration of these issues in the practices and functioning of French NGOs?

There are important efforts underway in the transversalization of gender in the practices and functioning of French NGOs, especially thanks to the mobilization of the Gender Commission of Coordination SUD. This French coordination of international solidarity NGOs conducts awareness-raising activities, develops recommendations and allows for the sharing of tools between associations. There is still work to be done, but we are working on it through the sharing of experiences, inter-association advocacy and a real desire to question our internal practices.

At CARE France, we obtained in 2020 the label « professional equality between women and men » from AFNOR (French Association for Standardization, in charge of coordinating the elaboration of standards, approving them and promoting their use). We are aware that this does not mean that everything is perfect in our way of working. We must continue to evaluate our practices regularly and be prepared to adapt them. In this context, we have built an internal evaluation system, which, with the help of indicators, allows us to monitor the implementation of our equality charter and to identify and address gaps in inclusiveness and gender sensitivity.

• What does the community of NGOs and associations involved in gender issues expect from the Generation Equality Forum? This summit organized by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico will be held from June 30 to July 2 in Paris.

An essential point for us is the effective participation of feminist movements and associations in their diversity, paying particular attention to those who are not usually around the table. Their mobilization was the strength of the Beijing Conference in 1995: governments and all the actors of this Forum must not just tick the boxes. They must truly take into account the voices and aspirations of feminists, women and girls, and all transgender and non-binary people, to address the inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic. At the beginning of this process, France, Mexico and UN Women as organizers presented the Forum as being « driven » by civil society. Today, civil society is listed as a « partner » in this framework. Words matter.

At the national and international levels, we want concrete commitments to gender equality that can make a difference in the long term: that is, transformative and ambitious financial announcements from the governments involved. with the collective Générations Féministes, we will make sure that, notably through this Forum, France creates a positive dynamic in favor of gender equality at the international level, but also sets an example in its actions and provides financial means that are commensurate with the stakes, particularly with regard to gender-based violence.