"Africa's Women and the MDGs: a need for a step change in action" - Speech by EU Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner

Sommaire: 22 September 2008, New York - Speech by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, "Africa's Women and the MDGs: a need for a step change in action" at the UNIFEM side event Africa Women's Forum, United Nations General Assembly

Madame Director,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

More than halfway towards the Millennium Development Goal target date - 2015 - there has been some progress on gender objectives in Africa, notably in the realm of women's increased political participation. Excellency your becoming Africa's first-elected woman president in 2006 bears witness to this.

But in other areas, we know that progress is not on track:

- The proportion of people in sub-Saharan Africa living on less than $1 per day is still appallingly high. Women are disproportionately affected;

- One woman dies a minute in Africa from complications related to child birth;

- Of the 25 million Africans infected with HIV, nearly 58% are women;

- Although there has been progress, Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region not on track to meet MDG gender parity objectives in primary and secondary school enrolment.

- Progress on reducing infant mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly slow;

- Women in Africa still lag woefully behind men with regard to formal labour force participation, employment, access to credit, entrepreneurship rates, income level, inheritance and land ownership rights.

A long list. Add to that shifts on the global stage since the launch of the MDGs which make their implementation more challenging - global economic slowdown, the food security crisis and increasing impact of global warming… In sum, the picture could do with a few roses.

UNIFEM's initiative today to organise this event focusing specifically on the MDGs and Africa's development from a gender perspective is therefore welcome. And I am delighted to be here. You asked me to speak about what more we can do to make a difference and fast.

The MDG Africa Steering Group produced an excellent report this summer, addressing just that question. It contends that, if a certain number of recommendations are met, the MDGs can still be achieved for Africa by 2015. I'd like to focus on four and end with a fifth of my own.

First, increased support for education and healthcare systems. Conscious of the urgency of action, the EU has just adopted a MDG Agenda for Action. Its targets for 2010 are:

- 15 million more girls in primary education

- 4 million more children's lives saved each year from preventable diseases

- 21 million more births attended by skilled health workers

- and 50 million more women in Africa provided with modern contraceptives

Second, the report advocates increased ODA quality and predictability. The European Commission, with the UK and the Netherlands, is spearheading new methodologies of aid management. The EC has committed to disbursing 50% of its assistance direct to host government national budgets on the basis of agreed national strategies, with expenditure frameworks and progress benchmarking.

Third, improvements in national statistical systems and sharing best practice. This is precisely one of the foci of the "EC/UN Partnership for Gender Equality in Development and Peace". It aims to ensure that gender is properly reflected in aid programmes run in accordance with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. We are currently working on pilot programmes in 12 countries - four of which are in Africa - where we are mapping the aid system. The information gleaned will then be used to share best practice between countries, identify government capacity building needs and provide civil society in each country with the information it needs in order to play its full role in influencing aid decision-making. The EC/UN partnership also enabled us to ensure that gender equality became part of the aid effectiveness agenda, agreed at Accra on 4 September.

The Africa-European Union Strategic Partnership will be another forum through which we will privilege the goals outlined above.

Fourth, the Africa Steering Group makes clear that an additional yearly US $72bn are needed in donor finance if the MDGs are to be achieved in Africa. The European Commission is already playing its part. Between 2000 and 2006, the Commission supported gender-related projects worth more than 67m euros. And, to give but one example, we have just tripled the funding available for gender under our "Investing in People" programme for the period 2007-2013.

I said that I would add a fifth recommendation of my own. And that is the duty which we, women decision makers, have in keeping gender at the forefront of discussion on development. I am a diplomat by trade but also a politician. So you won't be surprised to hear that I am convinced of the need for women to participate fully in political processes, particularly peace processes, if sustainable peace and development are to be achieved. That is why I organised a major international conference in March this year in Brussels on the theme "Women: Stabilising an Insecure World". As a result, over 40 women political leaders have just joined me in proposing to the UN Secretary General that a ministerial level meeting be organised in 2010 to reinforce commitment to the implementation of UNSCR 1325. I hope that you will all support me in that call. And join me at a conference in Brussels this October to take this action forward.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. Major General Cammaert, UN Military Adviser, recently declared that "It is now more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in modern conflict". Must it ever be so? It is our job as women leaders to ensure that it is not.

I thank you for your attention.

Ref: SP08-009EN
Source UE: Commission Européenne
UN forum: Assemblée Générale (y compris Sessions spéciales)
Date: 22/9/2008

| Haut |

< Retour à la page précédente