By Rosina Wiltshire, Director of the Gender in Development Programme,
United Nations Development Programme, on September 18, 1995, in Pasadena

(Summary by Jim Stewart)

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which serves 170 countries from offices in 136 countries, focusses on the elimination of poverty and inequity, both within and between nations. It publishes an annual Human Development Report. The 1995 Report focused on the issue of gender inequity, noting that 70% of world's poor are women, and 67% of illiterates are female, while only 10% of parliamentary seats and 6% of cabinet positions are held by women. In addition, the threat of violence stalks women from cradle to grave.

Women do $11 billion of unpaid work each year, while experiencing legal inequality, such as being barred from land ownership or credit in some countries. Most banks require that borrowers be wage earners or owners of property, which often excludes women. Women represent only 7-11% of farm credit programs, women are only 11% of borrowers in India. The lack of credit keeps them poor, prevents empowerment, and decreases food security. In Africa women do 60% of agricultural labor, produce 80% of the food, and yet receive only 1% of total credit provided to agricultural efforts. Multilateral organizations provide $5.8 billion for agricultural support to developing countries, but only 5% of that goes to women. Women often cannot own land or secure credit to help expand production.

Since women are essential agents of economic and political change, the surest way to promote economic growth and political participation is to involve women. Women are beginning to close the gap in education and health statistics, but not in the economic and political arenas.

The UNDP is stimulating policy debate in this area. We want to help promote understanding of the role women play in development.

At the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, nations made the decision to include women's unpaid work in satellite accounts. The Beijing conference addressed other fundamental issues of policy regarding gender. I was pleased to see so many men there. At the 1980 Women's conference in Nairobi there were only about 50 men among the NGO community, but in Beijing, there were hundreds of enlightened men. Beijing was a historic milestone of walking in partnership with men. It has ushered us into the dawning of the new century with three major objectives:

1. Equal parity of women in economic and political decision making

2. Recognition of legal equality for women

3. End to violence against girls and women.

This conference brought in the messages from the 1992 Rio UNCED Earth Summit, the 1995 Copenhagen Conference on Social Development, and other conferences to chart a new way forward for the world as a whole.

What kind of world do we want for the 21st century? We want the opportunity for girls to develop to their full potential, the recognition and valuation of girls as well as boys, an end to the killing of girl babies, the right for girls to have as much food and information as they need.

In Beijing, we saw the importance of partnership between the civil society (NGOs) and the governments to help ensure women's voice in formulation of government policy.

I participated in the Mexico and Nairobi women's conferences. At the 1981 Nairobi energy conference, I was one of three women in the official conference, which was talking about petroleum, nuclear and solar energy. I met six women, who had walked in miles from the rural areas, to talk about how the distances to fetch firewood were increasing. They saw first-hand the environmental crisis from deforestation, saw the link of environment and poverty.

I helped organize the 1991 Miami Women's Conference for a Healthy Planet, which helped develop a women's Agenda 21, which influenced the UNCED Agenda 21. Women bring a knowledge base different from men, which complements the male perspective, and is essential to an understanding of the whole issue.

The Beijing conference created a holistic vision of a path toward the 21st century. The governments cannot do this alone, we women must play a role. We are half of the world, and without us the world will move toward disaster.

UNDP goals include:

* Empowerment of women

* Improved environment

* Sustainable livelihoods

* Poverty elimination

* Promote women to the highest levels of government decision-making

In Beijing we set specific targets for the next 2 years, based on research that when women form 30% of the decision-making body, government priorities change. We will assist governments in the follow-up implementation of Beijing. The key is for each of us to help implement the Beijing statement in our own countries. Gro Harlem Brundtland said in the closing that every second a baby boy and a baby girl are born, and they all deserve equality of opportunity. We must remember the look of hope in their eyes, and honor that hope with our action.

Discussion

Q: What kinds of pressure can we exert on our governments to make change?

A: For example, in South Africa, during the transition to majority rule, the Women's Coalition brought together women of all ethnic groups and political persuasions in the recognition that they had the opportunity to make South Africa a non-sexist society. They formed focus groups that included women's perspectives from all economic and geographic areas, to discuss what a new constitution should look like. They helped produced a proposed new constitution. They also insisted the ANC have 30% of election candidates as female. The result is that now South Africa has one of the largest percentages of women in Parliament in the world.

In Sweden there was a decreasing number of women in Parliament, so two women convened ten women and discussed the issue. They agreed each would bring five to the next meeting, so they had 50. They kept their names secret, but published a statement calling for equal pay, equal political say, and no violence (similar to South African women's goals). They asked that 50% of election candidates be female. If they had decided to form a women's political party, polls found that it could get 44% of the vote. So both major parties agreed to the 50% requirement, and now women are 50% of the parliament and the cabinet. The result is that Parliament now recognizes the need to support the family, for example the Parliament has a nursery to care for children. I believe women could do this anywhere.

I believe women have even been complicit in the culture of violence. For example mothers teach that boys don't cry, boys play with guns, etc. I believe we are complicit in the culture of inequality, and it is up to us to help make the change.

Q: Some 800 NGOs are calling for the World Bank and the IMF to be brought into the accountability to the UN General Assembly.

A: The accountability already began at UNCED, and more transparency is happening. These organizations serve the world's people, we are the stakeholders, but it is not likely they will soon become accountable to the UN General Assembly.

Q: Women do unpaid work especially in agriculture. The roots of this are often in colonial histories. In the US there is an intersection of race and class and gender. For example, the African-American infant mortality equals that in many Third World countries.

A: This diagram from the 1995 UNDP Human Development Report, which we used in Beijing, shows that two-thirds of unpaid work is women's work, only one third is men's work. This shows that we value what is exchanged in the market place. For example, if a man hires a housekeeper, that is counted in the national income, if he marries the housekeeper, the national income drops. If a woman raises food in her garden and the family eats it, it is not counted, but if she sells it in the market and buys it back, it is. Getting that unpaid work put into satellite accounting systems was a major breakthrough in Beijing, now we need to get it into the main national accounting systems. When we value caring for children and the elderly we will see a different picture of our countries.

Q: I agree with the 3 principles of the Swedish women. Equal pay for equal work is a no-brainer, and so is no violence. We may need to define equal say. I hope that women will keep the world from grinding them down, yet that is not happening in the US. So far the participation of women in leadership does not ensure justice -- I have experienced repression at the hands of women. It seems power corrupts, as women join the ranks of the strong and oppress the weak.

A: Where women form 30% of the parliament there is a reorientation, but that proportion is not happening in the US. At lower percentages, some women seem to become more male than men and be more hierarchical. Since the experience of caring for children and nurturing the old shifts our view of reality, women bring a new perspective to the table.

Q: Since the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (which gives very small loans to groups of women) has turned out to be profitable, can that be expanded?

A: The World Bank is helping the Grameen Trust and helping other countries start similar banks. The repayment rate of women has been 98%, so the Grameen Bank has proven to the world that women are reliable and creditworthy. I would like to see the mainstream banks benefit women and men equally, women should not have to rely only on microcredit banks.

Q: We saw media coverage about the Chinese harassing some women. Were there any women from Tibet? What about the Pope and birth control?

A: I saw no harassment by the police. We heard there was initially some harassment of the Tibetan women, but that was stopped by the NGO community. We heard of some incidents but I did not verify them. There were some logistical problems that the media focused on rather than on the substantive issues. There were quite a few Tibetan women as part of NGO groups.

The Vatican was less open in their opposition (than they were at the Cairo Population Conference). They lobbied hard in the corridors, but were open to compromise on the language.

Q: Proportional representation of parties in our legislature would help gender balance.

A: Proportional representation is not the key, the key is to have the political parties agree to have a minimum percentage of women candidates, as happened in Sweden and South Africa.

Q: There is a danger of essentializing women and saying they are more nurturing than men, but that would absolve men of responsibility for nurturing. Although gender is important, we have to have more people valuing women's contributions and women's values.

A: Laws and policies have to reflect both men's and women's perspectives. For example, as men are given paternity leave in many Nordic countries, some men are penalized in job promotions because they put family first. Mainstreaming of gender means looking at every decision in terms of its impact on women and on men. Every decision has gender implications.

Q: Guaranteed income would mean women have the same income guaranteed as men, and would move toward gender equity

A: I do not know about the issue of guaranteed income in the U.S. In Jamaica in 1970, they were introducing the minimum wage but wanted to leave out domestics, (which comprised 60% of female work force), supposedly because they had food and housing provided. We interviewed 500 domestics and their employers and found people working 60-80 hours a week, getting as low as $4 per week, with the average wage as $10 per week. Their employers were buying perfumes and stockings equal several times that each week. The result of our study was the government included domestics in the minimum wage. We have to question our values, and make decisions on goals for human society. We can integrate gender in every level of policy.

Q: Was there a question about the special relationship the Vatican has compared to other NGOs?

A: A number of religious groups met in NYC and raised the question of the Vatican special governmental status compared to other religious groups, and that issue recurred throughout the conference. There was a petition to remove them from the UN.

Q: How can we ensure the equal value of girls and boys?

A: There was a lot of language in the conference document about that issue. You can't legislate for a country, but you need to encourage men and women to value the girl child, to give women greater say over their bodies, to value the work of women. We could do that in the education system.

Q: How was violence defined?

A: Violence includes genital mutilation.

Q: Did people see the relation of women issues to other issues, such as world population?

A: All of the last UN conferences have shown that you cannot deal with the population issue without dealing with women's issues. For example, Kerala, with 98% literacy, has 2.2 children per household, but Uttar Pradesh, with much lower literacy, has 5.5 children per household, even though both have about the same poverty level. We also saw women's issues linking with all issues of poverty and environment. It moves from women's issues to people issues.

Q: How can we start the Grameen Bank in the US?

Audience: We have several microcredit banks in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Q: What was the most important outcome of Beijing?

A: Major outcomes for me were:

* The focus on gender.

* Seeing men and women working in partnership.

* Seeing women as agents of change rather than victims of change.

* Economic valuing of women's work.

* Significant youth participation as young women came up with recommendations which got into the platform.

* On the Beijing Express train from Europe, the Greek and Turkish Cypriot women started out at each other's throats and ended with a pact to jointly solve the problems of Cyprus.

* Women in the CIS countries came up with a demand for peaceful approaches to solving conflict in the former Soviet countries.