Women and the Economy

Dollar a Day

Check out this post from our partner organization Women Thrive, another entry in our Food Security in Focus series. This post focuses on the issue of women and food security. Stay tuned to the blog for more entries over the coming days.

-Kara Arsenault

There are about 1.4 billion people worldwide, most of whom are women and children, living in extreme poverty (defined as living on approximately $1 per day or less). As president and co-founder of Women Thrive Worldwide, I spend my days advocating on behalf of these women. This fall, I lived in Tactic, Guatemala for four days, a mountainous, rural region that contains some of the most desperate poverty in Central America. I spent time with three Mayan women—Margarita, Dorotea, and Eluvia—and attempted to experience what they must do everyday: live on less than $1, or 8.3 Quetzales (Guatemala’s currency), per day.

The following is an excerpt from my diary:
……

Back at Margarita’s home we talk to her about her life. Because of a poor economy, there are no formal jobs in Tactic, so, like most women, Margarita supports her family selling vegetables that she grows with her husband. However, they can barely produce enough food to feed their family, let alone enough to sell. Hence, their income is extremely low – combined they earn about 50 Quetzales a day ($6.02), which they must split among 13 people.

With limited income and limited crops, come limited diets. In the morning, children in Bempec will usually have a cup of coffee with sugar and two tortillas. At school, they will receive a cup of Atol de Elote (ah-TOLL day eh-LOW-tay), a thin corn-based porridge, followed by herbs cooked in water after school. Mothers often have to send their kids to bed as early as 4pm just to keep them from feeling hungry for dinner.

I look around at the lush landscape and think about how much food Margarita could grow if we could get U.S. development assistance programs to reach women like her. You wouldn’t know it in the States, but much of the developing world, including Guatemala, is experiencing an extreme food crisis.

Yet women, who produce the majority of the world’s food supply, receive a scant amount of the credit that goes to small farmers. It strikes me that growing food in the fertile Western region and selling it to the Eastern region, where there is a famine, could be a path out of poverty for these farmers. But that can’t happen until development programs get serious about helping agricultural communities like Bempec – and women like Margarita. Read more about women & food security here.



Read my full diary, view my photo album, and watch videos from the trip here.

-Ritu Sharma, president and co-founder, Women Thrive Worldwide

Photos by Mckenzie Lock, Women Thrive Worldwide

Food insecurity, gender, and the financial crisis

Last week the 2009 Global Hunger Index, published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerlife, and Concern Ireland, was released. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) takes a broad look at food insecurity by examining three indicators: the percentage of undernourished people in the population, the percentage of underweight children under five, and the mortality rate of children under 5. Countries receive a score on a scale from 1 to 100 where 1 means that there is no food insecurity and 100 means that everyone is suffering from undernourishment. A GHI score between 10 and 19.9 means a country has a serious food security problem, 20 to 29.9 means the problem is very serious, and above 30 is an extremely grave food security situation. The worst performer, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) scored 39.1.

The results for Africa are serious, demonstrating high levels of food insecurity:

• Only African countries score above 30: Ethiopia, Chad, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Burundi and DRC.
• The report also measures progress since 1990. The countries where food security is now worse than in 1990 are: North Korea, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, DRC, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, The Gambia and Madagascar.
• Across the continent the food situation is now better than in 1990—the score improved by 13% (from 25.4 – 22.1); however all other world regions improved faster than sub-Saharan Africa.

The report notes that in countries with high scores, war and violent conflict have spurred poverty and food insecurity. The report also correlates the Gender Gap Index with food insecurity and finds that high rates of hunger are strongly linked to gender inequalities, particularly in literacy and education, and the exclusion of women from health services. The message here is: educating girls and allowing women to access health services will enable them to produce and/or access more food for their families and thus increase food security in the household.

The report discusses the financial crisis as well. Working in tandem, the food price crisis and then the global financial crisis decreased food security: the food price spikes made food more expensive, which meant that many families could no longer afford food, but could also have led to increased investments in food production. However, once the financial crisis hit, investors withdrew their financing, leaving viable investments unimplemented.

Having all of this information is a crucial step towards ensuring global food security, as Joachim von Braun, IFPRI director general commented, “Knowing that hunger and gender inequality go hand-in-hand, an important step to ending world hunger is empowering women and eradicating gender disparities in education, health, economic participation, and political opportunities. After decades of slow progress in the fight against hunger, child malnourishment is now on the rise due to recent economic developments. It is imperative that commitments made at the G20 and other global policy meetings are swiftly transformed into real action in cooperation with developing countries.”

The report also contains an interactive map of the Global Hunger Index, which you should check out:

UN Takes New Step to Tackle Global Women’s Issues

In case you missed it, exciting news came out of the opening session of the UN General Assembly last Monday: after nearly three years of negotiations, member states voted to create a UN agency for women.

The new agency’s mandate will be to “promote the rights and well-being of women worldwide and to work towards gender equality.” Currently, the UN’s gender programs are scattered across various agencies through four different programs: UNIFEM, the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW). The new entity will be headed by an Under-Secretary General who reports to the UN’s Secretary General, on par with agencies like UNICEF and UNHCR.

Groups that have been campaigning for the body (such as Gender Equality Architecture Reform, or GEAR) hope that a composite, super-agency will not only raise the prominence of gender issues on the global agenda but also boost funding for women through the UN, which they say has been low under the current structure. GEAR and others are calling for $1 billion in start-up money for the new agency (for comparison, the 2007 budgets for UNICEF and UNIFEM in 2007 were $129 million and $3 billion, respectively).

There is no doubt that the step is a good one for the world’s women, especially those living in the world’s poorest countries. For over two decades, development experts have been saying that countries who invest in education, health and economic opportunities for their women see greater results in poverty reduction and development across the board. Yet while some progress has been made in improving the lives of women around the globe (through expanded access to microfinance and treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, for example), the fact remains that women are still bearing the brunt of extreme poverty and disease and in many countries, are systematically excluded from the economy and politics and living in fear of violence and rape.

The UN decision follows other signs that momentum is building for a renewed effort to tackle global women’s issues. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama created the first ever Office on Global Women’s Issues in his Administration (with veteran women’s advocate Melanne Verveer at its head) and in Congress, Senator Barbara Boxer now chairs a subcommittee with global women’s issues in its purview. The need to invest in women was also a recurring key theme of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Africa, and this past month both the Clinton Global Initiative and the New York Times have highlighted the topic in a major way.

So it seems that everyone- and now the UN- agrees: women are key to a healthier, more prosperous and stable world. The challenge is now to translate this growing consensus into action. At the UN, details on the new agency will be ironed out over the coming months after Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon comes up with a proposal to member states on the body’s mission, funding, structure and oversight. The first indication of how much muscle the new agency will have. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., the FY011 budget should be a good sign of where the Administration’s priorities lie and how they match with Congress. We’ll be watching these developments at ONE closely, so stay tuned here for news from both fronts.

-Nora Coghlan

CGI: Investing in Girls and Women

President Clinton shares the stage with Dr. Helene Gayle during plenary session on “Investing in Girls and Women”

Diane Sawyer just wrapped up moderating a really engaging panel with Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO of Women for Women International; Rex W. Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil Corporation; Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Women’s Issues in the State Department, and Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group; and Edna Adan, Director and Founder, Edna Adan Maternity and Teaching Hospital.

Sawyer framed the discussion as “the river of what is right converging with the river of what is needed” which I think really captures the spirit of what I’ve seen so far at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting. President Clinton, while introducing the panel claimed that in many places in the world, no matter how hard and long women work they rarely get as many opportunities and choices as men do. The panel echoed this sentiment with most, if not all, of the participants agreeing that education is the key to achieving equality for all women. According to Ambassador Verveer– the first such Ambassador-at-Large for Women’s Issues (something that drew a big round of applause from the audience)– framed education as key to confronting extremism.

A lot of the discussion centered around the fact that women account for such a large percentage of the workforce in developing countries yet are rarely compensated to the degree that men are. This, according to Zoellick emphasizes the need to train greater focus specifically on girls and women. As he put it, it’s not an issue of giving special advantages to women, but just helping them achieve a level playing field. Indeed, as was echoed at numerous points in the panel, saving one woman often means saving an entire family. This opportunity has drawn the attention of businesses such as Godman Sachs and ExxonMobil to invest in women and children. At one point, when discussing ExxonMobil’s efforts in developing countries, Tillerson suggested and funding in and of itself is not the whole solution. Salbi quickly retorted that while this may be true in part, girls and women still continue to receive an incredibly small percentage of development funding.

Also touched on during the panel was the role of technology and innovation in empowering women. Ambassador Verveer listed both mobile banking and cell phones as being on the front lines in creating positive change. Zoellick also emphasized the need for basic technology– such as electricity– in many developing countries.

-Chris Scott

UPDATE: Here’s the video of the panel on girls and women.

Banking on women

A couple weeks ago, the Tanzania Women’s Bank opened its doors for business in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam. According to the East African, the bank is the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, where the World Bank estimates that women own 48 percent of enterprises but have the hardest time accessing finance.

Although anyone is welcome to open accounts at the new bank, it targets women who have inadequate capital to grow their businesses. While traditional banks require title deeds or other proof of wealth to open account, the Women’s Bank only asks for an ID and $2 in savings, making it much more accessible to women in a country where a third of the population earns less than $1.25 a day. There are also no monthly fees.
Bank officials say that the opening was the result of years of campaigning by women’s groups. From the East African:

“Women’s groups called for the establishment of this type of bank way back in 1999. They wanted a place where they would be listened to and where their needs would be taken into account,” said Ms Chacha [Margareth Mattabi Chacha, the bank’s executive director].

“It took them 10 years to collect the necessary funds. Their biggest challenge was to satisfy all the conditions needed to be recognised as a bank. So far, the initiative is a success,” she said.

Once the bank is firmly entrenched, the founders plan to expand regionally and, eventually, across the continent.

Although the bank is just a few days old, plans are at advanced stages to open branches in other Tanzanian towns.

“Many women live in the countryside,” said Ms Chacha. “Trips to ATM machines are long and costly. We will make banking available through mobile phones, a service provided by a number of banks in Africa,” she said.

Two weeks after it opened, the Women’s Bank now has over 500 customers, 70% of whom are women. In addition to helping women open accounts, bank staff also teach them basic business skills and money management. Officials hope that the availability of staff to walk women through the various steps and procedures will help make the process less intimidating for Tanzanian women, who like most African women are unlikely or unable to take advantage of formal banks. According to a 2006 World Bank survey, only 5% of Tanzanian women use banking services, compared to 11% of men.

Helping women overcome barriers to accessing credit and controlling their own finances is widely accepted as a key step in transforming communities in the world’s poorest countries. For years, microfinance institutions have targeted women as the recipients of small, low-interest loans on the premise that money invested in women is money invested in families and communities. A study in Brazil, for example, found that a child’s survival probability increases by about 20% when income is in the hands of the mother.

When matched with social and political opportunities, economic empowerment for women can have a multiplier effect on families and communities. So watch Tanzania over the next few years. It’s a country that has made significant progress in areas like health and education in the past decade, but this recent development might be the first step towards a new era.

-Nora Coghlan

Hillary Clinton’s Remarks on Global Development

Here’s a clip of Senator Clinton’s remarks on global development at her confirmation hearings which are happening now. We’ll have further policy analysis soon. (Transcript below.)

In Africa, the foreign policy objectives of the Obama administration are rooted in security, political, economic, and humanitarian interests, including: combating al Qaeda’s efforts to seek safe havens in failed states in the Horn of Africa; helping African nations to conserve their natural resources and reap fair benefits from them; stopping war in Congo; ending autocracy in Zimbabwe and human devastation in Darfur; supporting African democracies like South Africa and Ghana–which just had its second change of power in democratic elections; and working aggressively to reach the Millennium Development Goals in health, education, and economic opportunity.

Many significant problems we face challenge not just the United States, but all nations and peoples. You, Mr. Chairman, were among the first, in a growing chorus from both parties, to recognize that climate change is an unambiguous security threat. At the extreme it threatens our very existence, but well before that point, it could very well incite new wars of an old kind—over basic resources like food, water, and arable land. The world is in need of an urgent, coordinated response to climate change and, as President- Elect Obama has said, America must be a leader in developing and implementing it. We can lead abroad through participation in international efforts like the upcoming UN Copenhagen Climate Conference and a Global Energy Forum. We can lead at home by pursuing an energy policy that reduces our carbon emissions while reducing our dependence on foreign oil and gas—which will benefit the fight against climate change and enhance our economy and security.

The great statesman and general George Marshall noted that our gravest enemies are often not nations or doctrines, but “hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.” To create more friends and fewer enemies, we can’t just win wars. We must find common ground and common purpose with other peoples and nations so that together we can overcome hatred, violence, lawlessness, and despair.

The Obama administration recognizes that, even when we cannot fully agree with some governments, we share a bond of humanity with their people. By investing in that common humanity we advance our common security because we pave the way for a more peaceful, prosperous world. Mr. Chairman, you were one of the first to underscore the importance of our involvement in the global AIDS fight. And you have worked very hard on this issue for many years. Now, thanks to a variety of efforts—including President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief as well as the work of NGOs and foundations—the United States enjoys widespread support in public opinion polls in many African countries. This is true even among Muslim populations in Tanzania and Kenya, where America is seen as a leader in the fight against AIDS, malaria, and TB.

We have an opportunity to build on this success by partnering with NGOs to help expand the infrastructure of health clinics in Africa so that more people can have access to life-saving drugs, fewer mothers transmit HIV to their children, and fewer lives are lost. And we can generate even more goodwill through other kinds of social investment, by working effectively with international organizations and NGO partners to build schools and train teachers, and by ensuring that children are free from hunger and exploitation so that they can attend those schools and pursue their dreams for the future. This is why the President-Elect supports a Global Education Fund to bolster secular education around the world.

I want to take a moment to emphasize the importance of a “bottom-up” approach to ensuring that America remains a positive force in the world. The President-elect and I believe in this strongly. Investing in our common humanity through social development is not marginal to our foreign policy but integral to accomplishing our goals. Today more than two billion people worldwide live on less than $2 a day. They are facing rising food prices and widespread hunger. Calls for expanding civil and political rights in countries plagued by mass hunger and disease will fall on deaf ears unless democracy actually delivers material benefits that improve people’s lives while weeding out the corruption that too often stands in the way of progress.

Our foreign policy must reflect our deep commitment to the cause of making human rights a reality for millions of oppressed people around the world. Of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls, who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. If half of the world’s population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal, and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity will remain in serious jeopardy. We still have a long way to go and the United States must remain an unambiguous and unequivocal voice in support of women’s rights in every country, every region, on every continent.

-Chris Scott

Women step up in Rwanda

After abolishing and modernizing various patriarchal laws in their country, the Washington Post reports that women have become a driving force in Rwanda’s economy and government. Rwandan women have greatly progressed from once not even being able to inherit land to now holding a third of all cabinet positions and making up 56% of Rwanda’s parliament—a near perfect reflection of Rwanda’s demographics.

Excerpts below, full article here

One lawmaker said the committee has compiled “a stack” of laws to modify or toss out altogether — including one that requires a woman to get her husband’s signature on a bank loan.

“The fact that we are so many has made it possible for men to listen to our views,” said lawmaker Espérance Mwiza. “Now that we’re a majority, we can do even more.”

The unusually high percentage of women in Rwandan government is in part a reflection of popular will in a country of 10 million that is 55 percent female.

“This was a broken society after the genocide,” said Aloisea Inyumba, Kagame’s former gender and social affairs minister, who was also a prominent official in his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front when it was still a rebel group fighting the country’s genocidal government. “We made a decision that if Rwanda is going to survive, we have to have a change of heart as a society. Equality and reconciliation are the only options.”

-Chris Scott