February 16, 2006—The World Bank is warning that without action and change, more than six million girls will miss the opportunity to go to school by the year 2015. The warning came at a high level conference in Washington DC today, aimed at galvanizing support for promoting gender equality and empowering women. In opening the conference, World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz, stressed that gender equality was a development issue and central to the Bank’s fight against poverty. “When we talk about gender equality, or about empowering women, or bringing more girls into the classroom, many think this is a women’s issue. They’re wrong. It’s a development issue, “Wolfowitz said.. “No country can expect to progress if half its population is held back from achieving what they’re capable of, “he said. The promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women is the third of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the set of targets endorsed by the international community to serve as a blueprint for helping the world’s poor.  |  |  | | Ing Kantha Phavi, Minister of Women's Affairs, Cambodia. |
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Warning Sign However, World Bank Vice President for Poverty reduction and Economic Management (PREM), Danny Leipziger, says the international community is facing a major challenge to meet the goal for gender equality. “We’ve already had a global warning sign,” Leipziger says. “The world did not meet the mid term target of eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary school education by 2005.”
The failure to meet the mid term target for schools is evident in the statistics. In most developing regions, gender disparities grow wider with rising schooling levels. Of the 128 countries with data for all levels, only about half have achieved gender parity in primary education, while in secondary education the figure is 30 percent The Bank says the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are likely to fail on their third goal – gender equality – because of lack of adequate financial and political support. Wolfowitz told the conference, it was now time to do everything that can be done to help women and girls achieve equality. “I’ve seen in my travels the unmistakable role women play – not only in improving the lives of their children and families but also in revitalizing their communities and contributing to their countries’ economic progress. All they need is the opportunity. It is time we do everything we can to help them get it, “he said.
Wolfowitz said of the six million girls likely to miss out on the opportunity to be in school by the year 2015, the majority – 3.8 million will be from Sub-Saharan Africa. Focus on Gender Today’s conference, staged by the Bank in partnership with others, was designed as a high level consultation for developing and developed country policymakers and donors. “We’re hoping that – based on the some of the work the Bank has done – we can reinforce the view that not providing enough attention to the gender issue is actually bad development policy, “ Leipziger says. “For example, if we’re interested in the health of children, then we’re interested in the literacy of the mother. If we’re interested in labor force participation and better agricultural yields, then we need to invest in the assets that women have access to. “So essentially we’d like to make the development community increasingly aware that dealing with gender issues is a smart investment in development.” Gender Left Behind Maya Buvinic, sector director for gender in the Bank’s PREM network, says the high level talks have been prompted by concerns within the development community that “gender has been left behind.” “It’s important in itself to achieve the goal of gender equality and the empowerment of women. But equally important, this goal is instrumental to the achievement of the other MDGs and more generally, is instrumental to achieving development. More Parity but Not Equity Buvinic cites gender equality at the secondary level as a key challenge for the future. But she points out that while there’s greater parity between boys and girls at the primary level, some of that is due to a drop in the number of boys in school. “We’ve done a lot better in trying to meet the primary education parity target,” she says. “Unfortunately some of that achievement is because boys’ enrollment has fallen behind.
So it’s not because girls have improved, but it’s because boys’ enrolment has dropped in a number of developing countries around the world. So there’s more parity, but not more gender equality. Economic Opportunity Buvinic says another key theme of the high level consultation is examining ways to promote women’s economic opportunities. “We’ve done much better in terms of equipping women with the education and the health status so they can function in the labor force. But in fact this does not mean that once women have the health or education status, that they can get a job,” she says. “It’s the restricted economic opportunities - the inability of women to get good jobs in the workforce and to get access to credit and to productive technologies – that are holding women back. This comes at a tremendous cost to economies as investments and talents are not fully utilized. This represents a tremendous drag on development. Down to Basics “The issue is really to bring the gender question down to the project level and to specific interventions in countries, “Leipziger says. “ We know for example that 30 percent of the difference between growth rates between Ghana and Botswana is explained by the difference in education levels of women.” Leipziger says that there’s a clear need to mainstream gender in economic policies and programs. “Without a boost to the work and effort of those working on gender, we can assure ourselves that the gender goal will not be met,” he says. |
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