Word: nairobi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hotel imbroglio was playing out in Nairobi, the U.S. delegation was in Washington enjoying a White House send-off lunch of veal vol-au-vent and cantaloupe sorbet. At each place setting was a commemorative bronze medallion wrapped in white paper and pink ribbon. President Reagan's remarks to the group included a few fatherly jests about his daughter Maureen, who is to head the delegation, but his message was earnest. The "business of the conference is women, not propaganda," he reminded them...
When the moment of agreement finally came at 3 a.m., bleary-eyed delegates erupted into whoops and cheers on the floor of Nairobi's cavernous Jomo Kenyatta International Conference Center. After almost two weeks of often bitter debate, delegations from 160 countries managed a relatively harmonious conclusion to a conference marking the end of the United Nations Decade for Women. A series of compromises enabled the conference to adopt unanimously a document of "forward-looking strategies" for women that avoided ideological extremes. "The U.N. won in spite of itself," said Delegate Rosario Manalo of the Philippines, "and it took women...
...disputed paragraphs. But that may not have been the primary objective anyway. The trio of negative votes, shrugged one member of the U.S. delegation, "was for the people back home." The same issues kept the U.S. from signing the final document at the Copenhagen meeting. But in Nairobi, the U.S. seemed determined, if possible, to lend its imprimatur to the conference's concluding report. Said Delegate Reagan before the final vote: "My No. 1 concern is to have a document adopted by consensus that will give a legacy for ten or 15 years...
Indeed, the delegates' almost frenzied effort to complete their work and not let the conference collapse in discord reflected the nearly universal feeling that the Nairobi meeting represented an important step toward an international women's movement. For most of the participants, the gathering created a synergy that transcended the protests and the eye-glazing speeches. Women not only shared their common experience of oppression and inequity but reveled in positive personal qualities: determination, humor, intelligence. Many felt that it would only be a matter of time before "the spirit of Nairobi" would translate into action back home. "There...
...political nature of the U.N. parley was echoed at the NGO forum, where the Great Court of the University of Nairobi campus provided an outdoor bulletin board for the world's causes and conflicts. A Japanese peace group displayed life-size photographs of atom-bomb victims. The Pan Africanist Congress, a black South African liberation group, tacked up a banner showing a female guerrilla fighter. Free-form discussions of war and peace went on all day in three large blue-and-white-striped tents, known collectively as the Peace Tent. There all the gathering's anxious, angry or exhausted vented...