[hr-education] UNIFEM Director about International Women's Day 2002

[***Below is the statement by the Executive Director of UNIFEM, Noeleen
Heyzer, on the occassion of International Women's Day 2002, Mod.***]

International Women's Day
8 March 2002

Statement by Noeleen Heyzer
Executive Director, UNIFEM

More than a year has passed since the historic United Nations Millennium
Summit (September, 2000) when nearly 150 world leaders endorsed a clear
set of development goals. They agreed to halve extreme poverty, reduce the
maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters and achieve equal access of
girls to all levels of education, all by 2015. They also committed the
world to halt, and begin to reverse, the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

Gender equality is paramount to the fulfillment of each of these goals. In
order to halve extreme poverty and reduce maternal mortality, we must
first specifically address the issue of feminized poverty and resources
must be allocated to ensure women's survival, options and opportunities.
In order to achieve parity in school enrollment between girls and boys, we
must stop girls from being pulled out of school to care for their family
members who are sick and dying from HIV and AIDS. In order for violence to
cease being a daily reality for women across the globe, we must work
towards more equal power relations between women and men. In order to curb
HIV infection rates, we must take measures to address the fact that women
are biologically, economically and culturally more vulnerable to
contracting the virus and we must work to give women the right and power
to refuse unwanted and unprotected sex and be heeded.

Two upcoming global events are critical to advancing the Millennium
Development Goals and ensuring that gender equality is seen as a
pre-requisite for sustainable development and poverty eradication. The
46th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to take
place this month in New York has identified the eradication of poverty and
the empowerment of women throughout their life cycle as the main focus of
this year's discussion.

The second critical event is the International Conference on Financing for
Development (FFD) to take place in Monterey, Mexico in March 2002. This is
a unique opportunity to ensure that resources follow rhetoric. For the
first time in history, the UN, World Bank, IMF, and WTO will come together
to find new ways to use financial resources to meet basic human needs,
such as health, education and social services.

UNIFEM has been working closely with women's groups to ensure that their
voices are heard at this important international forum. The FFD conference
must address the issue of feminized poverty and promote equitable,
effective and appropriate resource allocation to improve women's lives if
we are serious about achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The best way to measure commitment to gender equality is to follow the
money. UNIFEM has been working with partners on gender responsive budget
analysis, which helps governments decide where resources need to be
reallocated to achieve human development and gender equality. Gender
budget analysis can also be applied to the distribution of official
development assistance and we should start with the reconstruction process
for Afghanistan.

Over the past months we have witnessed an international outcry over the
suffering and exclusion of Afghan women. Now is the time to ensure that
international aid is used to help Afghan women regain their rights.
Rebuilding the country will be a difficult and lengthy process. The
majority of Afghan women have no access to clean water, energy or
sanitation. Only 3% of Afghan women are literate and 1,600 out of 100,000
Afghan women die during childbirth.

Women in Afghanistan are key players in recreating their communities and
their country, but their contributions need to be recognized, valued and
supported. Based on extensive consultations with Afghan women living
inside and outside the country, we have outlined four key areas of concern
that require immediate action.

The first is women's security. The truth is that women don't feel safe and
silence surrounds violence against women in the home. The promotion of
gender justice is a second priority. In practice this will mean that
violations of women's rights will be monitored, reported and remedied.
Governance is the third priority. While a strong Women's Ministry is vital
to making sure that commitments to women are honored, women's perspectives
and leadership must also be included within other ministries and outside
of government. The fourth priority is women's economic security. Women
need to be employed and paid decent wages.

On this International Women's Day, we want to express our solidarity with
the women of Afghanistan and reiterate the need for women to be central to
all levels of the reconstruction process. We want to call for increased
commitment and financial resources to fulfill the Millennium Development
Goals and for official development assistance to meet the needs of women,
especially those who are most vulnerable and from marginalized groups.
These challenges are not the responsibility of any single institution or
government. It is an undertaking that requires the pooling of all human
strengths and sources of creativity and it is the responsibility that men
and women must share equally.

***

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) works to promote
women's empowerment, rights and gender equality worldwide. For more
information, visit http://www.unifem.undp.org




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