State Secretary, Mr. Leiv Lunde

“The role of employment and work in poverty eradication: the empowerment and advancement of women”

Geneva, 6 July 1999

Success in combatting poverty is dependant on an enabling environment related to peace, women and men's participation, human rights, law and order
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations
High-Level Segment

Mr. President,

The need for women’s empowerment has been a recurring theme in all the summits of the 1990s, culminating in the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action called for the mainstreaming of gender equality issues into all policy areas. The ECOSOC plays a key role in these efforts and is following up the Beijing Platform for Action by placing gender issues on the agenda for the third year running. Mainstreaming a clear gender perspective from the planning stage to practical implementation is crucial to the development of a society. I would therefore like to thank the Secretary General for the interesting report entitled “The Role of Employment and Work in Poverty Eradication: the Employment and Advancement of Women”.

Eradicating poverty requires an enabling environment, where peace, human rights, the rule of law and good governance, and not least women and men’s equal participation, can flourish. Achieving social and economic development requires judicial and social structures conducive to trade and investment. An active employment policy is crucial for economic and social progress. Such a policy must also encourage the participation of the private sector.

The reduction of obstacles to invest is essential in order for the private sector to thrive and thus create more jobs. It is vital that an enabling environment in the form of viable financial institutions and sound financial management be established. My Government therefore recently launched a strategy for private sector development in the South to highlight this part of our development cooperation.

Poverty is a reality for more women than men. The feminization of poverty is on the increase. I therefore especially welcome the Ministerial Communiqué, which we are about to adopt. It states that effective poverty eradication strategies have to address job creation and gender-specific policies. We know that women’s contribution to the economy is essential for growth and social development. We also know that countries will continue to live in poverty if women remain oppressed.

Overlooking women’s contribution to the economy has very damaging effects. Many women are in a situation where they cannot even obtain a modest loan which would allow them to become independent and productive members of society. In many countries women own nothing, can inherit nothing, and are unable to offer security for loans. No wonder, poverty has a female face. Women will not become empowered without changes in legislation, access to information and not least, the redirection of resources. This requires a firm political will to empower women.

Education is a human right and a central tool for achieving the goals of equality, development and peace. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education. Education is the most effective means of improving women’s status in society. We therefore have to start with the right to education for girls. In too many societies, there are more boys than girls receiving education. There are complex economic and cultural reasons for this. From the perspective of the individual household the benefits to be derived from women’s education may be small, but this is contradicted by the many studies showing that investing in women’s education is the one single investment that yields the highest social return. Thus what may make sense for the household does not make sense for society. Educated women have fewer children, whose overall health is better and who are more likely to receive an education themselves. Education improves income opportunities, strengthens cultural bonds and promotes women’s participation in democratic processes. In our development cooperation, Norway pays great attention to this, and we try to support our development partners’ efforts to meet the basic needs of their populations.

In 1996, the UNDP Human Development Report reviewed the connection between economic growth and human development. I would like to draw your attention to two of its most important conclusions. One was that the oppression of women has a particularly negative impact on human development. The other was that lasting economic growth depends on investment in human resources. The Secretary General’s report to this meeting contains estimates showing that annual per capita growth in Africa is 0.7% lower because of inequality in employment opportunities. This figure was first published last year in the report issued by the Special Program for Africa. (”Gender, Growth and Poverty Reduction”, World Bank. Partly financed by Norway.)

The Secretary General’s report also states that employment promotes equality between women and men. This is not automatically so. There are differences between women and men with regard to both getting a job and keeping it. We have heard representatives in the United Nations complaining about the unfairness of the fact that women are the first to lose their jobs, especially when the economy is in decline. Is it wise, or fair, that men’s rights in the labour market should in fact be given more protection than those of women?

Women need rights in the labour market – not special rights, but rights that are equal to those of men. Women and men need an equal right to influence the wages that they earn. Women as well as men need access to bank accounts, to credit and to loans. On average women earn about two-thirds of what men earn. This wage gap can be partly explained by factors like education, work experience and other types of qualifications. Most of it, however, can be ascribed to wage discrimination.

The ILO has a particularly important role to play in the employment field. This organization includes representatives not only of governments, but also of the social partners. We welcome the attention paid to the cross-cutting gender perspective in the Report of the Director General at this year’s Labour Conference. The report states: ”Women have transformed the labour markets of the world. In many countries the increasing labour force participation of women is driving employment trends. The activity rates of males are declining while those of females are increasing. …In some cases, women have succeeded in obtaining greater opportunities and economic autonomy. But many have been victims of change.” The report also focuses on occupational segregation, pointing out that women often find themselves in the least protected sectors of the economy. This is also taken up in the Secretary General’s report, which points out that labour market segmentation may lead to discrimination against the poor on the basis of skill, sex or race. Again an important solution is to empower women, particularly by promoting health, education and training and by making this an explicit objective of government policy.

In developing our own societies and in international development cooperation we need to live up to the national and international standards already set. Efforts to educate and train women should be stepped up in order to enable them to play a more influential role in family life, in their communities and in society at large.

All of us participating in this debate have a job to do. We must do our utmost to ensure that our government fulfils all the commitments in the Beijing Platform for Action. To accomplish this, we will have to work simultaneously in many arenas and in many fields. The mainstreaming approach is a challenging way to promote gender equality in society. De jure equality is a good start. All human rights should be enjoyed by both women and men. The international community had to be reminded of this as late as in 1993, by the Vienna Conference on Human Rights.

In conclusion, Mr. President, I would therefore like to encourage those states that have not yet signed and ratified the CEDAW convention to do so and those states that have entered reservations to the convention to withdraw them. It is now 20 years since the adoption of the convention. Let us implement it, let us transform the convention into concrete rights. This will be an important step towards the alleviation of poverty.

Thank you, Mr. President.