‘Women are central in the fight against poverty’ - Message for International Womens Day 2003
Date: 4 Mar 2003
Speaker: Secretary-General Don McKinnon
In his message to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2003, Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon said:
Women earn one-tenth of the world's income, own less than one-tenth of the world's property and hold 1 per cent of chief executive positions worldwide.
The number of rural women living in poverty has nearly doubled in the past 20 years, and women make up over 70 per cent of the world's 3 billion poor who live on less than 2 dollars a day. If we want to make real headway in the fight against poverty, women must be at the heart of our strategy.
As we celebrate International Women's Day, we should recognise that the empowerment of women is key to addressing the development issues we are facing today.
Women's empowerment has been shown to play a critical factor in controlling the spread of the HIV/AIDS global pandemic. Women's education contributes the most to reducing child mortality, malnutrition and population growth, and increasing women's ability to change their lives.
Over the last few years, a great deal has been achieved. Women's representation in parliaments has increased and now reaches, on average, 15 per cent globally. Political participation of women ensures that gender is put on the agenda and action taken.
We at the Commonwealth Secretariat are trying to achieve this. Working in partnership with the Government of Sierra Leone and civil society groups, last year, we held a conference in the capital, Freetown, to discuss the role that women can play in parliament. At this conference all of Sierra Leone's main political parties agreed that women would form at least 30% of the candidates they presented to the electorate. In the elections, which were held three months later, the number of elected women parliamentarians increased from 8.8% to 14.3%.
Women are also making invaluable contributions towards post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and other countries recovering from the trauma of war. Such initiatives must continue to be implemented and sustained.
But despite these achievements, serious gaps remain between women and men, affecting the development of the societies in which they live and work.
In many countries, women are not getting their fair share in the development process, and in others they are becoming poorer in absolute terms. Efforts to promote productivity of the poor are still largely targeted at men while women are expected to carry on contributing to household livelihoods and caring for the family with little or no support for their efforts.
Gender inequality still remains the most pervasive form of inequality, and is most severe among the poor. Thus the Millennium Declaration signed by 189 world governments, with a focus on poverty, shelter and hunger, makes an explicit commitment to gender equality.
Gender equality is essential to building long-term, sustainable and equitable development. Increasing women's access to education and literacy, paid work, particularly waged employment and political representation can bring real change to the lives of communities throughout the Commonwealth.
I urge all Commonwealth governments to increase their efforts and provide a solid foundation for the advancement of gender equality in this century. If we are serious about achieving the Millennium Development Goals, we must make sure our commitment to the empowerment of women and gender equality is translated into reality.
Note to editors:
The Commonwealth Secretariat's new publication by Dr Naila Kabeer, Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Development Goals: A Handbook for Policymakers and Other Stakeholders, was launched at the United Nations in New York on 4 March 2003 to celebrate International Women's Day and to coincide with the Commonwealth planning meeting of Heads of National Women's Machineries.
04/03/03
delicious
digg
reddit
facebook
stumbleupon
News feeds