PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNIFEM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNIFEM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Outlining the findings of a new report at a Headquarters press conference today, the Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) stressed the urgent need, in the anticipation of the 2005 Summit, to focus on the role of women in the informal labour force.

Noeleen Heyzer, noting that world leaders would soon gather to address concrete actions to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, said the report entitled “Progress of the World’s Women 2005” linked gender equality and poverty, making the argument that global poverty would not be reduced without addressing the issue of feminized poverty.  The report found that while more women had entered the labour force, most were concentrated in informal employment, which was a widespread and persistent feature of today’s global economy.  Informal employment comprised some 50 to 80 per cent of total non-agricultural employment.

Even in developed countries, self-employment, part-time and temporary work comprised anywhere from 20 to 30 per cent of total employment, she added.  The proportion of women workers was much higher in that form of employment, with some 60 per cent or more of women workers concentrated in informal employment outside of agriculture.  Data in the report showed that women’s earnings were too low to raise households out of poverty.  Women were also focused in the more insecure forms of informal employment.  Unless those issues were addressed, poverty would not be eliminated and gender equality would not be achieved.

The good news was that solutions could be found and change had taken place, she said.  It was a question of upscaling many of the good practices that had been found around the world.

In that regard, the report recommended several strategic actions to upscale those practices, she said.  They included increasing the assets, access and competitiveness of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy; improving the terms of trade for the working poor; securing appropriate legal and social protection and rights of informal workers; and ensuring that informal workers were visible and that their work was supported in policymaking.  Ensuring that policies were “gender blind” and closing the gender gap in income was also essential.  Private sector partnership was important in that regard.

Asked to provide a specific example of empowering women, she said there was an organization or network of informal sector workers called HomeNet.  The UNIFEM also supported women’s self-employment associations.  In terms of sub-contractors, UNIFEM had also worked to bring in more socially responsible private sector companies.  She had been able to form a partnership with the Calvert Investment Fund, one of the largest investment funds in the United States worth some $10 billion.  Together, they had launched “women’s principles”, which, among other things, would close the gender pay gap and ensure safer and healthier working conditions.  At the end of the day, that kind of action was needed by employers to ensure change.  Openness to social auditing was equally important, both in companies and in the production chain.

Responding to another question, she said she had met with a group of widows in Rwanda who made baskets.  These women did not want charity but only that their work was recognized.  She was pleased to announce that Macy’s would be importing the baskets, called “peace baskets” because they were made by Hutu and Tutsi women working together, in bulk in time for Christmas.  It was a question of finding niche markets for the products made by women and giving value to their work.

There were four reasons why so many women were concentrated in the informal sector, she said in response to another question.  They included lack of access to education and skills and oppressive family structures that did not allow women to inherit property.  A third area was gender balance in government policies and the fact that women were still seen as secondary workers.  Labour market segmentation was yet another issue.

Asked what UNIFEM hoped to get out of the Summit, she said it provided an opportunity to remove, once and for all, discriminatory laws against women.  Providing rights for women at work was another area.  Other important areas to be addressed by the Summit included the issue of violence against women, which was still extremely widespread, both in times of peace and in times of war; women’s and girls’ education; reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS; and reproductive health and rights.

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For information media • not an official record