Chair,
Allow me to add the following to what my
Austrian colleague stated on behalf of the European Union.
Intellectually, most, if not all, of us
are convinced that gender issues are central to development partnerships.
Expanding the girl child's life
opportunities is simply the right thing to do if you want sustainable economic growth and
development. Estimates suggest that if all women finished primary school food production
would increase by 25%. If women had some 4 - 6 years more of schooling, child mortality
would be reduced by 40%. We know poverty has a feminine face. Intellectually, we have
grasped this, but have we internalised the following?
It is not enough to say that by reducing
poverty we will help a lot of women. It is by empowering women that we will have a chance
to eradicate poverty. Women need to have their full share of access to and control over
local resources, to secure their land rights, and get access to credit - after all their
repayment record is better than that of men. If you haven't understood the need for a
gender analysis of road building or government budgets, go back and learn the ABC. And,
crucially, women should not have to waste intellectual and emotional energy on men in
their lives who do not take full family responsibility. Investing in women, and women's
investment, is indeed the key to development, not just the other way around.
And as with the fight against poverty, so
with the fight for full political human rights. It is not simply that increased democracy
will lead to the empowerment of women. It is when women organise and secure their human
rights that a new democratic culture will emerge.
Women usually do not partake in the
corrupt or near corrupt back-scratching that bedevils markets worldwide. The emerging
market economies are vulnerable to being captured by elites, old or new, political,
military, clan or business buddies - but few of them are women. That is why women in power
are sometimes perceived as an awkward, even threatening, phenomenon. Macroeconomic
policies which do not take into account micro level situations - for example risk factors
and time factors - can not succeed. The alternative to captured markets are social
markets. Women are better at that - that's a safe generalisation. So female empowerment is
an investment in more efficient, social markets.
Hard action will also be needed on a
human rights issue of great concern to individual girls and women - protecting the
integrity of their bodies, respecting reproductive choice, ending feminine genital
mutilation, sexual abuse, violence in the home and on the streets, the threat of HIV. The
tabus around these issues must simply go away.
Women are today organising to an extent
we have not seen before. They are changing the nature of politics in many societies.
After a series of opportunities that I
have had over the past years in meeting with this rapidly emerging political factor, my
understanding of gender issues has fundamentally changed. When you confront a, literally,
critical mass of women and experience their wrath over prevailing circumstances, their
frustration over the slow change, and their capacity to analyse and organise, you realise
that gender issues are no simple matter.
They are fundamentally political in
nature. We need to get in tune with these processes of liberation if we are to succeed
with our development objectives.
Today, we assess progress made by the
United Nations in implementing the far-reaching recommendations of the Platform for
Action, adopted two and a half years ago by member states in Beijing. As we can see from
the reports of the Secretary General, considerable efforts have been made to go from
ambitious recommendations to concrete action. UNFPA, Unicef, Unifem and others have come a
long way. I would like to stress how impressed Sweden is by the firm commitment of the UN
High Commissioner on Human Rights, Ms Mary Robinson, to focus clearly in all activities on
both women and men.
However, we know that there is still a
need for a coherent strategy for gender mainstreaming in the UN System. The report on the
implementation of the Platform of Action is very honest in pointing out some of the
obstacles. I quote: "The dedication and determination of gender focal points was
severely constrained by lack of commitment and inadequate institutional support from top
leadership. Moreover, there were neither clear agency policies, nor adequate budgetary
allocations. The involvement of gender advisers in inter-agency mechanisms was therefore
guided by the use of discretionary guidelines rather than institutional directives for
coordination of gender mainstreaming."
It is indeed essential to take firm
action to counteract the attitudes described in the report. Sweden would like the UN to
present a coherent strategic approach for mainstreaming a gender perspective into all UN
activities and for strengthening the institutional capacity of the UN system in this
regard. Responsibility should rest at the highest levels and senior management of the
United Nations system. We hope that a report on this matter could be presented by the
Secretary-General to the 2000 review on the implementation of the Platform for Action.
As member countries we can all seek to
assist the UN in addressing gender equality more efficiently. Sweden is prepared to
provide extra funding to the UN Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women
, to help establishing a coherent system for gender mainstreaming.
Let me now turn to Swedish development
cooperation. Promoting gender equality was established as a separate goal in 1996. We then
had to take firm action to improve competence on gender equality - because translating
objectives into practical action called for new expertise and new methods of work. In a
first phase, an ambitious educational project, with a broad range of action-oriented
seminars, was launched. In a second phase, all ten departments - including for example
departments on security policy and trade policy - in the Ministry set up their own action
plans for 1998, indicating how they in their daily work could seek to address the needs of
both women and men more effectively in country-strategies as well as in work on
cross-cutting policy issues such as poverty alleviation and sustainable development.
In a third phase, a manual was produced -
in close collaboration with the concerned departments, to demonstrate how to mainstream
gender equality in development cooperation. The manual (of which copies are available in
the conference room) contains a number of concrete examples which demontrates how for
instance a health scheme or a road project should be designed in order to benefit both
women and men. The manual also refers to commitments made by partner countries to enhance
gender equality.
The manual is part of our internal
learning process. But that process can only succeed if we learn together with our
partners. Therefore, we have copies of the manual in English and French. In the fall, it
will also be available in Spanish, Arabic and Russian, to be used as an instrument in
bilateral dialogues on development cooperation.
It is essential to stress that the
process in which the manual was produced was as important as the product in itself.
Finally, Chair, women and men must work
together to combat systems and attitudes which oppress women, as groups and individuals.
Just like anti-apartheid was a concern
for all mankind - so must equality be the concern of all, women and men.
We have a long way to go to realise that
the other side of the coin is another understanding of the identity of men. We must not be
blind to the insecurity that boys and young men may feel as many societies transform. In
extreme cases, their insecurity is exploited by power-hungry politicians or war-lords and
lead them to engage in violence, petty crime or full scale war. More often than not
ethnicity - which of course to everybody should be a source of pride - is perturbed into
something which legitimises intolerance and violence.
I would wish, Chair, that we in future
devote more concern also to these new challenges to indentity and life choices of boys and
young men growing up in poverty.
Thus gender issues touch the essence of
security, conflict management, humanitarian action, and of course the ultimate way of
handling differing interests without recourse to violence or domination - namely
democratic culture.
I certainly hope that next century will
be the time when women will enjoy full equality with men; the beginning of an era when no
one will be discriminated on grounds of sex - and when partnership will fully encompass
both women and men.
I thank you.
Permanent
Mission of Sweden to the United Nations