Women’s empowerment vital for economic development and peace by Asha-Rose Migiro, UN Deputy Secretary-General 12:07pm 12th May, 2010   May 2010    Investing in women can lead to progress on many of the millenium development goals, says UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro. Calling for greater investment to ensure the health and wellbeing of women, she stressed that healthy women lead to better families and societies, and will help to achieve the globally agreed development targets with a 2015 deadline.    “We need to tell people that it pays to invest in women – that investing in the health and rights of women triggers greater progress for all”, she said.    Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 – just one of eight targets agreed by all world leaders in 2000 to cut critical social inequalities by 2015 – aims to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters.    “We must meet our obligations to the world’s women and children. We must do so because healthy women are the answer to solving many of the world’s most complex and pressing problems: poverty, hunger, disease, and political instability. Healthy women are the foundation upon which all of the Millennium Development Goals stand.    When women are healthy, and their rights are protected, they are more productive. They generate income, which helps build strong communities and societies. And when women have control over resources, they invest more in children’s health, nutrition and education. Such investments can break the cycle of poverty,” she stated.    Indeed Sustainable development, economic growth, and peace and security cannot be achieved without gender equality, Asha-Rose Migiro said, citing evidence of the beneficial impact of women’s empowerment.    “Numerous studies have found that for example companies with a more balanced representation of women and men in their management teams considerably outperform those where such representation is low,” she told the International Forum on the Role of Leadership in Promoting Gender Equality in Kigali, Rwanda.    She cited numerous advances in the past decade as States have devoted greater focus to overcoming occupational segregation; introduced measures to support women’s equal access to economic resources, including credit and land rights;, increased access to education for girls at all levels; and established comprehensive legal, policy, and institutional frameworks to end violence against women and girls.    “There is a growing recognition among Governments and in the private sector that investing in women and girls has a powerful multiplier effect, on productivity, efficiency and economic growth,” she said. “So, there are many good practices from which to learn. The challenge ahead is to expand and apply such practices more systematically, particularly in areas where more needs to be done.    “The costs of inequality – for women and girls, for their communities, for economies at large – are too high,” she added, citing estimates by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) that the region loses up to $47 billion in output each year due to lack of female participation in labour markets.    “The global economic and financial crisis has generated a new sense of urgency for committed and accelerated action to address gender-based discrimination, violations of women’s human rights and violence against women,” Ms. Migiro stressed, calling for leadership at every level and in many forms to ensure greater participation by women in political decision-making, and in corporate boardrooms, and fair selection and promotion processes within political parties.    “Gender equality is a key goal in itself,” she added. “But it is more than that. Women’s empowerment is an essential means to achieving sustainable development, economic growth, and peace and security.” Visit the related web page
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