INVESTMENT IN WOMEN"S EDUCATION, ENFORCEMENT OF CORE LABOUR STANDARDS URGED AS SECOND COMMITTEE CONSIDERS WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT

Press Release
GA/EF/2882

INVESTMENT IN WOMEN’S EDUCATION, ENFORCEMENT OF CORE LABOUR STANDARDS URGED AS SECOND COMMITTEE CONSIDERS WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT

The integration of women into economic activity had not been enough to resolve their social situation and eliminate the stereotypes they were subjected to, the representative of Mexico told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) this morning as it began its consideration of women in development.

From a gender perspective, the impact of globalization had transformed the labour market. However, the present situation was characterized by a growing number of households headed by women, disparities in salary levels, and an increased number of women in migratory work. An integrated approach was needed to tackle those issues. Investing in the education and training of women could only be to the advantage of women, their families and the nation. Women were not just a chapter in the international agenda, they constituted half the book.

Investments made to promote the education of girls were among the highest return investments available, said the representative of Finland, speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States. No country could afford to exclude a large share of its population from acquiring the skills needed to respond to the challenges of a globalized world.

Too often, he continued, macroeconomic policies had been designed without sufficient attention to their impact on the conditions necessary for women to respond to new opportunities. Micro-finance services were one of the relevant instruments to provide access to financial services for women, especially rural women, engaged in economically productive activities.

The representative of Guyana, speaking on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, stressed the acceleration of the feminization of poverty resulting from the unpredictable nature of female employment in today’s global market. The internationalization of production, reorganization of work and patterns of labour mobility in the globalized economy had had mainly affected women. The Group was alarmed at the growing trends towards increased outsourcing by multinational corporations, usually to low-wage sites in developing countries, and the undue exploitation of women that resulted from that practice. Women comprised the majority of workers in the informal sector, many of whom were subject to lesser job security, social protection, benefits and pay.

Introducing the report of the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) on its evaluation of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), Homero L. Hernandez, Coordinator, JIU, drew attention to the Institute’s

Second Committee - 1a - Press Release GA/EF/2882 26th Meeting (AM) 29 October 1999

financial crisis. If INSTRAW closed down, it would send a very negative signal about the commitment of the United Nations to the advancement of women. Like other United Nations institutions devoted to development, it was required to raise all of its funding from voluntary contributions and had become an undeserving casualty in the fight for funds.

However, how could one justify the fact that the United Nations research institute devoted to disarmament, for instance, was able to supplement its voluntary funds with a subvention from the United Nations regular budget, while other United Nations research institutes, including INSTRAW, were denied such an option? he asked.

Also this morning, the representative of Guyana (on behalf of the Group of 77 and China) introduced two draft resolutions with regard to the Committee’s consideration of environment and sustainable development.

Statements were also made by the representatives of the Dominican Republic, United States, Russian Federation, Norway, China, Cyprus, Myanmar and Israel. Angela King, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, introduced the 1999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development.

The Committee will meet again at 3 p.m. to continue its discussion on women in development.

Committee Work Programme

The Second Committee (Economical and Financial) met this morning to start its consideration of women in development.

The Committee had before it a note by the Secretary-General commenting on the report of the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), entitled an evaluation of the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) (documents A/54/156-E/1999/102 and A/54/156/Add.1- E/1999/102/Add.1).

The report was prepared in response to Economic and Social Council resolution 1998/48, which requested an evaluation “of the Institute which should include detailed analysis of the reasons for the financial and staffing situation of the Institute and the implications thereof for the Institute at all levels”.

In his comments, the Secretary-General notes that the report is a historical review and evaluation of INSTRAW performance and financial and staffing situation since its inception. The Secretary-General endorses the recommendation that INSTRAW should continue to fulfil its mandate, and supports the appeal to Member States to make financial resources available to INSTRAW to enable the Institute to complete its ongoing programme for the biennium 1998-1999 and realize its Strategic Plan and Work Programme for 2000-2003. He acknowledges that the survival of INSTRAW depends on the commitment of Member States, and that there is an urgent need for Member States to make available adequate voluntary resources to enable the Institute to fulfil its important role. The Secretary-General also notes that funds have been authorized for the Institute to enable it to operate until the end of 1999.

The Committee also had before it a report of the Secretary-General titled 1999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development: Globalization, Gender and Work (document A/54/227), which is the fourth such survey since 1986.

In its resolution 36/74 of 4 December 1981, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with appropriate United Nations organizations and agencies, to prepare a multisectoral and interdisciplinary survey on the role of women in development and submit it to the Assembly at its thirty- ninth session in 1984. In 1985, the General Assembly, by its resolution 40/204 of 17 December 1985, requested that the Secretary-General update the Survey on a regular basis.

The fourth Survey was requested by the General Assembly in its resolution 49/161 of 23 December 1994. The Assembly requested that the Secretary-General examine the impact of current trends and policies on the overall economic and social situation on women. It further requested that particular emphasis be given to the adverse impact of the difficult economic situation affecting the majority of developing countries, in particular, on the condition of women. Special attention was to be devoted to worsening conditions for the incorporation of women into the labour force, as well as on the impact of reduced expenditures on social services and women's opportunities for education, health and child care. The update should contribute to the debate on current goals and strategies for development and their implications for women and society.

The report states that since 1975, when the World Conference of the International Women’s Year was held at Mexico City, the discourse on women’s advancement and its relation with the development process has evolved. Essentially, it has shifted in focus from the intellectual and political approach of “women in development” (WID) to the new approach of “gender and development” (GAD). More recently “gender mainstreaming” has emerged as a strategy to promote gender equality.

[Mainstreaming a gender perspective is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and social spheres, so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality (Economic and Social Council, agreed conclusions 1997/2)].

Since the 1980s, according to the report, the growth of the female labour force has been substantially higher than that of men throughout the world, except in Africa. In developed countries, male-dominated manual occupations, mostly low- skill manufacturing jobs, have been disappearing at a rapid rate. The decreasing number of manufacturing jobs that have remained, which continue to be male dominated, have progressively become high skilled. In the past two decades, much of the increase in employment has occurred in the service sector. Given women’s heavy concentration in those sectors, the female share of employment has increased markedly. In the developing world, the salient aspect of female employment is the fact that the majority of women are still in agriculture. However, in some regions men have been moving out of agriculture faster than women, increasing the relative concentration of women on the land. Another important trend has been the almost universal increase in women’s share in total non-agricultural employment, especially in the “high-growth countries” that have been industrializing rapidly in recent years.

The report states that a growing body of evidence suggests that the employment effects of globalization on women have been weakening, at least in the formal economy, since perhaps as early as the late 1980s. Two reasons appear to have been important. First, in many middle- and upper-middle-income countries, labour demand has been shifting towards relatively high-skill manufacturing; while employment growth in traditionally low-skill sectors, such as textiles and apparel, where women workers predominate, has been declining. Second, throughout the developing countries as a whole, the informal sector has been gaining in importance in new employment creation, especially for women.

It is generally agreed, the report notes, that women’s wages and working conditions still fall significantly short relative to those of men almost everywhere around the globe, even after accounting for the differences between women and men in education, labour skills and labour market experience. The evidence which shows a closing gender wage gap in the United States and some other developed countries since the mid-1980s seems robust and widely agreed upon. By contrast, the evidence from developing countries on the direction of change in the gender wage gap is mixed, and no agreement exists about whether a positive overall trend exists.

The report notes that whether and how the new market economy contributes to women’s empowerment remains an open question. Those who generally have optimistic expectations about the benefits of intensified market relations argue that private-sector development opens up new opportunities for entrepreneurial activity empowering to women. By contrast, for the sceptics, what is empowering is the social networks women enter and create in the context of paid employment, be it formal or informal. They doubt that increased participation in the labour market

will, by itself, have a liberating effect on women, recognizing that it might very well give rise to new forms of gender subordination at work at a time when the old ones within the household are eroding.

The report argues that the increased burden on the household in many developing countries has led to survival strategies that are potentially self- destructive. Faced with an erosion in its resource base, households have had to shift to less sustainable or riskier combinations of economic activity. Thus, certain kinds of survival strategies (for instance, those that involve the withdrawing of children from school so that they can contribute to the family budget), while possibly effective in the short run in reducing income insecurity, have been inimical for the long-term interests of the household.

A major policy challenge in our era, according to the report, is how to prevent individual countries from engaging in injurious competition on the basis of cheap labour and lax labour standards. As the direction of trade and investment flows in the world economy has increasingly come to depend on cost differences among countries, policies aimed at improving labour standards in individual countries have become harder to implement. While this has generally been detrimental to women’s welfare, it might also have coincided with the emergence of new opportunities for the women’s movement. The influence of women’s organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other civil society organizations seems to have risen around the world, as the unprecedented possibilities for direct international networking at the grass-roots level are opened up by the global diffusion of information and communications technologies.

Since many gender biases in economic life emanate from gender inequalities at the household level and in social attitudes and norms, the report recommends creating conditions of equality in sharing reproductive responsibilities and decision-making within the household, and eradicating legal, institutional and cultural barriers that prevent or disadvantage women’s participation in economic activity and decision-making at the political level. It might be useful to address economic policy in terms of the three levels at which gender affects economic development in (a) enhancing the intersectoral and spatial mobility of labour in order to better reallocate labour, (b) minimizing adjustment costs, and (c) investing in human capabilities.

As the era of globalization is characterized by the curtailment of labour mobility, especially female labour mobility, the report also recommends that: (a) equal opportunity policies and programmes be enacted to reduce occupational segregation by sex. Policies should assist men to enter traditionally “female” occupations, as well as assist women in entering traditionally “male” occupations. Provision of child care and increased education and training for women in non- traditional subjects are also important; (b) policies seek to make work family- friendly. With the increased participation of women in paid employment, the need to enact family-enabling policies, including family leave and sick leave for care of family members, is greater than ever. Policies should encourage men and women to take equal responsibility for caring labour necessary to ensure well-being within the family; (c) support services be provided to help women and other disadvantaged target groups both to secure and to keep jobs. Policies should encourage employers to help workers meet family obligations through the provision of workplace crèches, mobile nursing care and sponsored school-holiday programmes, among other possibilities; and (d) assistance be provided for women preparing for work in overseas labour markets, including measures to protect them from exploitation and abuses.

In order to bolster employment and income security of women and their families, the report recommends that policies be introduced to allow women workers to consolidate the benefits of increased paid employment through access to basic worker rights, that policies be directed at improving the stability of work, that policies address the needs of women who are over-represented in the informal sector, giving support to self-employment, entrepreneurial skills development and small-enterprise support programmes that target women, and that -- especially in the least developed countries -- women’s property rights in land and other assets be enhanced.

The report notes that in the context of globalization, international policy coordination might increasingly be required to prevent a "race to the bottom" among individual countries vying for advantage in world trade and capital flows. It was, therefore, recommended that: (a) trade policy initiatives identify their likely social impact beyond producer interests, to include broadly conceived welfare support measures. Trade policy reviews of the World Trade Organization (WTO) should, therefore, include consideration of the gender impact of existing and proposed trade policies; (b) core labour standards be universally implemented. (Core labour standards include freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour, the elimination of child labour, and the elimination of discrimination in employment. The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1998, calls for an international monitoring mechanism to assist individual States in overcoming obstacles in the implementation of core labour standards); (c) capital flows be stabilized in order to prevent excess volatility and economic disruption; and (d) international coordination to encourage adequate global economic demand be cultivated.

Also before the Committee was a note by the Secretary-General on women in development (document A/54/275), stating that the information requested by the General Assembly in its resolution 52/195 of 18 December 1997 was contained in documents A/54/227 ("World Survey on the Role of Women in Development") and E/1998/54 and Corr.1 ("Advancement of women: implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the role of operational activities in promoting, in particular, capacity-building and resource mobilization for enhancing the participation of women in development"), which are before the Assembly for its consideration.

Draft Resolution

Before the Committee was a draft resolution sponsored by Guyana, on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, on the Convention on Biological Diversity (document A/C.2/54/L.15), by whose terms the General Assembly would call upon governments, in cooperation with the Conference of the Parties, to use science-based analysis to study and monitor closely the evolution of new technologies to prevent possible adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, which might have an impact on farmers and local communities. It would also call upon States parties to the Convention to settle urgently any arrears and to pay their contributions in full and in a timely manner so as to ensure continuity in the cash flows required to finance the ongoing work of the Conference of the Parties, the subsidiary bodies and the Convention secretariat.

By the terms of the draft text, the Assembly would invite all funding institutions and bilateral and multilateral donors, as well as regional funding institutions and NGOs, to cooperate with the secretariat of the Convention in the implementation of the programme of work. It would also invite the Executive Secretary of the Convention to report to the Assembly on the ongoing work regarding the Convention.

Introduction of Draft Resolutions

DONNETTE CRITCHLOW (Guyana), on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, introduced draft resolution A/C.2/54/L.14 on the implementation of and follow-up to the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and the nineteenth special session of the General Assembly. The draft resolution focused primarily on proprietary issues. By the terms of the draft, the Assembly would call upon the Commission on Sustainable Development to continue to undertake tasks in complementing and providing interlinkages to the work of other United Nations organs, organizations and bodies active in the field of sustainable development, and to perform its functions in coordination with other subsidiary bodies of the Economic and Social Council and with related organizations and institutions, including making recommendations, within its mandate, to the Council.

The Assembly would further renew its request to the secretariat of the Commission on Sustainable Development to invite governments to submit proposals on how to improve the guidelines on the elaboration of national reports and, based on the information received, to prepare a report to be submitted to the Commission as part of the preparations for the comprehensive review of the implementation of Agenda 21. It would invite the regional commissions to provide a report through the Economic and Social Council on how their activities were contributing to the implementation of Agenda 21.

The Assembly would also invite the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at its next session to consider how the activities of UNEP are contributing to the implementation of Agenda 21 and to submit its views to the General Assembly at its fifty-fifth session.

According to the draft, the Assembly would invite the Secretary-General to take into account the preliminary discussions at the eighth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Economic and Social Council, and to submit a report to the General Assembly for consideration at its fifty-fifth session on possible ways and means of ensuring effective preparations for the review and to include proposals for analytical reports to be prepared for the review process.

Also on behalf of the Group of 77, the representative of Guyana introduced draft resolution A/C.2/54/L.15 on Biological Diversity.

Statements: Women in Development

ANGELA KING, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, introduced the 1999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, which addressed the changes in the world of work and gender in the context of liberalization and globalization. It gave a detailed overview, from a gender perspective, of employment and displacement effects of the economic trends associated with globalization. It further discussed the importance of those effects, in terms of their influence on women’s relative position within the

household and the labour markets around the world. The Survey focused on how the reorganization of production had led to the changing structure of output and flexibilization of employment, worldwide and individually, on each of the main forms of flexible labour –- part-time, informal sector and home-based work -– that had proliferated in the last two decades.

The Survey also demonstrated that the gender impact of globalization on the world of work was mixed, she said. Forces unleashed by globalization had been responsible for new opportunities that could potentially be empowering to women, on the one hand, and for increased economic volatility, job insecurity and loss of livelihood which had been inimical to gender equality, on the other. Globalization had had strong gender employment effects. It had led to the steady increase in the female share of paid employment. The increased economic autonomy of women gained through wage employment broadened their life options, strengthened their self-esteem, improved their status within households and their family’s purchasing power. It also had a negative side, as it had significantly altered the pattern of employment such that “irregular” conditions, which were once associated with women’s secondary employment, had become widespread for both sexes. The world of work was now characterized by casual, flexible and temporary employment patterns with the consequent job insecurity and lower enjoyment of basic worker rights.

In order to benefit from globalization, national economies must be capable of continually adjusting themselves to the changing conditions of the world economy, she said. That meant that countries had to facilitate, without discrimination, the increased flow of labour and resources across sectors, and, at the same time, be able to cope effectively with the adjustment costs that created. Both were inherently gendered processes. The Survey observed that globalization did not relieve the gender-based discriminatory practices that characterized every stage of economic development. Nor did it tend to minimize gender inequalities. It might even, in some circumstances, exacerbate them.

HOMERO L. HERNANDEZ, Coordinator, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), introduced the Unit’s report on the evaluation of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW). He said it was deeply regrettable that the Institute now found itself in an acute financial crisis. If INSTRAW closed down, it would be the first case in the history of the Organization in which a chartered institute of the United Nations closed without achieving its objective. That would send a very negative signal about the commitment of the United Nations to the advancement of women. The Unit’s evaluation led it to conclude that INSTRAW’s survival must be secured, and its recommendations supported that. The JIU recommended that action be taken to raise the visibility of INSTRAW, to strengthen the fund-raising function, to raise the rate of return of fund-raising activities, and urge the Board of Trustees of the Institute to take a more active role in fund raising at the regional level.

Women constituted one of the most important segments of the population, he said. “Obviously, whatever we do to achieve the advancement of women, we do to achieve the advancement of all humanity.” He underlined the direct link between the Institute’s training and research activities and the search for universal progress. The INSTRAW had become an undeserving casualty in the fight for funds which, for many years, had characterized the programming of United Nations institutions devoted to development. Like other such institutions, it was required to raise all of its funding from voluntary contributions. However, how could one justify the fact that the United Nations research institute devoted to disarmament,

for instance, was able to supplement its voluntary funds with a subvention from the United Nations regular budget, while other United Nations research institutes, including INSTRAW, were denied such an option? He hoped that Member States would review the unfairness of the present situation and make the appropriate adjustments.

SHERIDAN AMEER (Guyana), speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, said that, while acknowledging the positive benefits of globalization in some countries, the deleterious effects of that phenomenon on women in developing countries could not be ignored. The Group had, on more than one occasion, registered its concerns over the increased levels of global poverty and the greater inequality between regions and income groups that arose during the period of economic globalization. She stressed the acceleration of the feminization of poverty resulting from the unpredictable nature of female employment in today’s global market. The Group concurred with the reflections contained in the Secretary-General’s report on how the world of work was being transformed from a gender point of view in the context of globalization.

The internationalization of production, reorganization of work and patterns of labour mobility in the globalized economy had had a prominent effect mainly on women, she continued. The Group registered alarm at the growing trends towards increased outsourcing by multinational corporations, usually to low-wage sites in developing countries, and the undue exploitation of women that resulted from that practice. Much of the employment offered by multinational corporations was flexible in nature as a result of the deregulation of the international market. Women comprised the majority of workers in the informal sector, many of whom were subject to lesser job security, social protection, benefits and pay. Like their urban counterparts, rural-based women workers suffered the plight of poverty. Again, it was the forces of globalization that had increased poverty for agricultural workers, in an era of diminished subsidies and the liberalization of markets in favour of large-scale commercial farming.

MATTI KAARIAINEN (Finland), speaking on behalf of the European Union and Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta and Liechtenstein, said that many of the negative impacts of liberalization and globalization seemed to have disproportionately affected women. The already large share of women among the world’s poorest people was expected to increase in the years to come. A concerted effort was needed to define effective strategies for poverty eradication, including employment policies, that also promoted gender equality.

He said that investments made to promote the education of girls were among the highest return investments available. No country could afford to exclude a large share of its population from acquiring the skills needed to respond to the challenges of a globalized world. Too often macroeconomic policies had been designed without sufficient attention to their impact on the conditions necessary for women to respond to new opportunities. Micro-finance services were one of the relevant instruments to provide access to financial services for women, especially rural women, engaged in economically productive activities.

The issue of unpaid labour was an important one from a gender point of view. Unpaid work needed to be made visible, and the economic definition of work redefined to include unpaid labour. The United Nations system, in particular funds and programmes like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United

Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), would continue to play a crucial role in advancing the role of women in social and economic fields, and national efforts must be supported by a set of international measures.

JOSE MANUEL CASTILLO (Dominican Republic) said that the situation of women in the developing world was critical. Women were at the core of world poverty as they suffered most from discrimination, in terms of employment and decision- making, in society. Upon their shoulders fell the responsibility of being the heads of families in many instances. The INSTRAW was the only body of the United Nations devoted to research, training and information regarding women in development; yet, it had to operate on voluntary contributions, which limited medium- and long-term planning and restricted it to short-term action. Women in the developing world deserved greater attention from the United Nations. The Organization must act in solidarity with the institution charged with preparing the information needed to bring about the full development of women. It was not fair that INSTRAW should operate solely on the basis of voluntary contributions. He urged that the Institute’s financial situation be reassessed so that funds might be obtained to enable it to fulfil its mandate. He appealed to all governments to contribute to the revitalization of the Institute so it might continue its important work.

SIM FARAR (United States) said that in most regions of the world the primary responsibility of women for household labour and child care had shown little sign of diminishing, despite the increased role of women in the workplace. Empowerment of women was crucial to all economic development. Women cared for most of the world’s children, and women accounted for the majority of new workers in both industrialized and developing countries. “Women’s work makes the world work.” Core labour protections were needed if women were to be freed from discrimination –- in other words, if the doors of opportunity were to be opened for all.

He asked that future reports focus more on the opportunities that globalization provided for new approaches on women’s economic advancement. One of the more positive effects of globalization had been the increased role and accessibility of labour-assisting technology. Both developing and developed countries had experienced an increase in homeworking, a development which had benefited women more than men. Future reports should also strive to address the positive impact that technology was likely to have on the world’s people, including people in the developing world. Advancing the status of women was not just a social and moral issue. It was also an economic imperative.

Mr. AZVRAMENKO (Russian Federation) said that over the last four years the profile of women in social and economic development had been raised. When evaluating the role of women in society, however, extreme positions should be avoided. When looking at the issue of equality between men and women, the specific role women played in society should not be forgotten. The State had to recognize that extra social role -- giving birth to children -- and there should be provisions to facilitate that role for working women. Russia was far from solving all such problems, and similar problems were faced by most countries. There should be international cooperation in tackling them, using the expertise developed within the United Nations system.

He noted that support from United Nations funds and programmes tended to go to projects like family planning and the prevention of violence against women. Those programmes were of the utmost importance, but attention should also be paid to projects for creating new jobs for women, developing their entrepreneurial skills, and promoting them in the decision-making process.

MATILDE GARCIA VERASTEGUI (Mexico) said that, from a gender perspective, the impact of globalization had transformed the labour market. But the integration of women into economic activity had not been enough to resolve their social situation and eliminate the stereotypes they were subjected to. The present situation was characterized by the growing number of households headed by women, disparities in salary levels, and the increased number of women in migratory work. An integrated approach was needed to tackle those issues.

On the national level, efforts must be increased to attain economic growth, to provide more and better jobs, and to provide better access to well-being for all, particularly women. Institutional machinery must be enhanced and policies designed to permanently increase family incomes and create the impetus for women to enter the labour force on an equal footing. On the international level, the Assembly’s special session to review the Beijing Programme of Action should provide an opportunity to make new efforts to address issues related to women in development.

Mexico, she said, placed high priority on the promotion of full, fair and satisfactory participation of women in social, economic, political and cultural life, on the same footing as men. It had earmarked important resources for programmes designed to address poverty from a gender perspective. Investing in the education and training of women could only be to the advantage of women, their families and the nation. Women were not just a chapter in the international agenda, they constituted half the book.

OLE PETER KOLBY (Norway) said that development could not be sustainable if women did not participate fully in all aspects of the process -- and share, on an equitable basis, in the resulting benefits. It was not enough that development assistance was earmarked for individual projects directed towards women. Equal rights and opportunities for women and men must be integrated into all aspects of development cooperation. Gender mainstreaming was a demanding approach, but it should be integrated into all activities. Globalization had had ambiguous and at times contradictory effects on gender equality. Nationally and internationally, efforts to minimize the negative effects of globalization on women must be intensified.

Education and training proved to be the most effective means of improving women’s status in society, he said. Girls’ right to education should be firmly established. Women needed rights in the labour market equal to those of men. They needed access to bank accounts, to credit and to loans. At the international level, universal implementation of core labor standards had to be ensured. Gender equality and equal status for women and men were prerequisites for democratic, economic and social development. To achieve development, efforts must be focused on women.

MA XUESONG (China) said that large-scale poverty persisted, and had even been aggravated. That was because of continued instability in some parts of the world, and the financial crisis in some developing countries, which had resulted in slow economic growth. Women had borne the brunt of all that. The international community should, therefore, continue to adopt effective follow-up actions to fulfil the commitments already made. It should also cooperate to create the

conditions for women’s full participation in development by expanding their education, increasing their employment, extricating them from poverty and enhancing their status. The Assembly’s special session in 2000 should provide the international community with a good opportunity to review the implementation of the relevant follow-up actions and formulate additional programmes of action.

The Chinese Government had always upheld the principles of gender equality and women’s participation in development, he said. It had taken measures for the enhancement of women, which ranged from legislation, law enforcement, publicity campaigns, and job security to social security. In July 1995, it formulated the Outline for the Development of Chinese Women, which fully incorporated the principles of gender equality into economic and social development plans. The Outline specified 30 indices in 11 areas, namely, participation in government administration, employment, protection of labour rights, education, health care, family rights, prohibition of violence against women, eradication of poverty, improvement of the social environment, promotion of peace, and the establishment of gender statistics and analysis. Presently, women were very active in various political, economic and social fields, making tremendous contributions to China’s economic revitalization and expansion.

SALINA SHAMBOS (Cyprus) said the socio-economic role and status of Cypriot women life had improved significantly in the last 20 years. That progress was due in part to gradually changing social perceptions. But it was achieved mainly through women’s increased participation in economic activity (the result of high rates of economic growth and a low unemployment rate); the expansion and updating of family and labour law; increased public awareness of women’s specific problems; and the Government’s policy for the promotion of equality in all aspects of life, explicitly stated in all national development plans since 1979. The National Machinery for Women’s Rights, together with women’s NGOs, was currently organizing a four-day workshop to help women develop communication and leadership skills when participating in campaigning and decision-making at all levels of the political life of the country. In fact, a coordinated effort was under way to increase women’s participation and achieve a 30 per cent representation by the year 2005, in line with the goals set by the United Nations.

Recent government policy for improving the position of women in development was embodied firstly in its overall economic development policy, which aimed at maintaining conditions of full employment and fully utilizing human resources. Secondly, she said, it was pursued through special measures aimed at facilitating the entry into the labour force and retaining of employment by women, on the principle of equality. Legislation was currently being drafted to cover a variety of issues, such as those related to equal treatment in the workplace, income equality, legal and social insurance benefits, protection of the rights of pregnant working women, and the legal right to maternity leave.

U THANE MYINT (Myanmar) said that women in Myanmar enjoyed equal status with men in all areas of life. The history of Myanmar recorded the deeds of women who had played important roles in various fields. The Myanmar National Action Plan for the Advancement of Women included six areas of importance for the advancement of women: education and training of women; women’s health; women in the economy; women and culture; the girl-child; and violence against women. The National Plan permeated down to grass-roots levels. Special attention had been paid to women living in remote rural border areas. The role of women in development could never be denied or belittled in the ongoing task of improving the quality of life of the people. Half of the world’s 6 billion people were women. The potential of that nascent human resource was, to say the least, huge. It was the world’s duty to enable that vast reserve of human resource to play its full part within the development framework.

MORDECHAY LEWY (Israel) said women must be encouraged to claim their rightful roles in their nations’ development. In communal development, Israel had stressed the human factor, in particular the role women had to play in capacity-building for leadership. Israel’s training programme reflected a holistic approach to socio-economic development. Since its inception, the Golda Meir Mount Carmel International Training Centre had been dedicated to one goal: to highlight the gender issue on the international agenda. The Centre had gained its reputation by contributing to the advancement of women in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean region. It cooperated with international women’s organizations, with the United Nations specialized agencies, and with international development agencies.

Women would enjoy equality with their male counterparts only when responsibilities such as high-quality child care were shared by the community, when the value of women’s productive work and their income were sufficient for sustaining themselves and their families, and when women were occupied in positions of influence and policy-making at local and at national levels. Israel’s message was to introduce innovations on a project-by-project basis, to learn from experience and, if the evaluation was positive, to try to influence policy-makers to adopt those innovations.

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