Empowering women: more education, better health care, less poverty.

The young girl, a fifth grader, says goodbye to her classmates. Her mother died recently and she now has to stay home to cook and bring lunch to her father in the field where he works. At home, her grandmother, very old and blind, chides her son for withdrawing his daughter from school. "I will cook", she says. "But how can you? You are blind", he says. "What I can see being blind, you cannot see with your eyes open", the old woman replies.

The message of this dramatized public service announcement, broadcast frequently on national television in Bangladesh, is clear. This country, like many other developing countries, is opening its eyes to the reality that with almost two thirds of its female population illiterate, national development is severely hampered.

Therefore, education, along with poverty, health care, the environment and other issues, is one of the critical areas of concern identified by the UN for discussion at the upcoming Fourth World Conference on Women.

Poor, overworked and illiterate--this is the profile of most adult, rural women in the majority of developing countries. Although more girls and women are entering school, and near universal literacy has been achieved for young people in many regions, huge gaps exist in women's education and literacy, especially among adults--the caretakers and providers for whom the ability to read and write can make a world of difference.

According to the 1993 World Education Report of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 905 million men and women--almost a quarter of the world's adult population--are illiterate. About 587 million, 65 per cent of them, are women.

According to Conference Secretary-General Gertrude Mongella, if women are to contribute effectively to national development into the twenty first century, "the fundamental question is whether they will be sufficiently equipped to participate fully by receiving a quality education that will prepare them to enter any field, expose them to science, technology and communications and stimulate their creativity".

Pivotal links

Another critical area of concern is the status of women's health and their access to health care, which have been identified as pivotal links between the health of a population and its prospects for sustainable development.

"Setting an agenda for women's health must begin with a recognition of the fact not only that the health situation of women is different from that of men, but also that the systems identifying and determining that health situation are fashioned according to gender-biased models", states a February report of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (E/CN. 6/1995/3/add.3).

"Gender discrimination has tended to be hidden within the general issue of poverty and underdevelopment", the report says. "Many women suffering from poor health status are found to lack knowledge, information, skills purchasing power, income-earning capacity and access to essential health services."

Despite the fact that in households and often in communities women are the primary providers of health care. they often lack access to such care for themselves. Data cited by the report show that in many countries there are fewer women than men who are treated in hospitals, receive prescriptions for medication and timely treatment from qualified practitioners, and survive common diseases.

A disproportionate share

Among the important topics to be considered at the Fourth Conference in relation to women's health are reproductive health, fertility, ageing, malnutrition, mental health and sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

Women also comprise a disproportionate share of the world's poor. Over the past 50 years, the number of rural women in developing countries living in absolute poverty has risen by about 50 per cent versus some 30 per cent for rural men. The feminization of poverty is a problem in industrialized countries as well. By the end of the 1980s, some 75 per cent of all poverty in the United States was to be found among women, particularly those who were single parents.

Uneven burden

What is clear, according to a recent report on the implementation of the 1985 Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women (E/CN.6/1995/3/Add.1), "is that female poverty is a persistent and unevenly distributed burden that threatens the sustainability of the development process and that is, in the long run, likely to translate into slower rates of economic growth":

The report says the poverty issue has been accorded particular weight among the critical areas of concern for the Conference due to a number of trends:

* The emphasis within the development debate has shifted from economic growth as the principle objective of society to human-centred sustainable development, concerns of the quality of life and hence to poverty alleviation as the main goal of the development process;

* A gender perspective on the relationship between women's advancement and poverty has focused attention on differences in the incidence, causes and dimensions of poverty as experienced by men and women;

* The process of poverty eradication has slowed down significantly since the mid-1980s and the number of people living in absolute poverty has increased; and

* If in the past poverty was considered a primarily rural phenomenon, the analysis has been broadened to take account of the growing impoverishment among the urban population.

These developments, "together with the growing perception of poverty as an increasingly female phenomenon" have made poverty a top priority among areas of critical concern for the advancement of women, states the report.

Environment

The Conference will also discuss action to incorporate into sustainable development strategies the close relationship of women with the environment. Women are among those who suffer most from environmental degradation and also among the most significant actors in the conservation and safe-guarding of natural resources.

RELATED ARTICLE: Literacy ... One woman at a time

In Konkoran, a remote village in Mali near the edge of the Sahara Desert, life has stood still for centuries. The only thing that moved was the water in the Niger River, which lately has been carrying diseases, parasites and the risk of river blindness. Some 30 per cent of the children in Konkoran may die before the age of five, often due to waterborn diseases. Clean, safe water can save many lives. Several UN agencies have launched a literacy programme as part of a campaign about safe-drinking water.

Like most other Konkoran women, Fanta raised animals to fee her family and provide income. She was one of the first to join the literacy programme. In addition to basic skills, like reading and arithmetic, Fanta learned about oral rehydration, or "life water", as it is called here. She now treats children with diarrhoea, and has also learned better methods for raising goats and healthier ways to prepare milk. Village women who cannot read often came to her to write letters for them or to seek advice on practical matters. Literacy has given Fanta's life a whole new meaning and a new level of status in her village.

A world away in Bangkok, Thailand, lives Youphadee. Her family is among the 400 who live in the sprawling Rajataphan slum, where she makes her living by selling food in the street. After Youphadee joined a literacy programme sponsored by the Government and UNESCO, she learned basic accounting to help run her business.

Together with other women, Youphadee has also formed a credit union, which provides much-needed loans for family emergencies and investment in business. "Educate girls because they have a more difficult life", she says. "If I had to choose between sending a boy or a girl to school, I would send the girl."