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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
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Africa: ECA African Women Conference
Africa: ECA African Women Conference, 1
Date distributed (ymd): 980508
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +gender/women+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains the final press release from the Economic Commission
for Africa (ECA) 40th anniversary conference, on the theme "African
Women and Economic Development: Investing in our Future," held in
Addis Ababa from April 28 through May 1. The next posting contains the
opening address by ECA Executive Secretary K. Y. Amoako. Additional information
on the conference and ECA programs can be found at the ECA web site (http://www.un.org/depts/eca/eca40th).
The proceeding of the AFR-FEM Virtual Working Group including more than
400 participants in an on-line discussion preceding the conference can
be found at
http://www.globalknowledge.org/english/archives/mailarchives/afr-fem/index.html
(type address on one line). The AFR-FEM recommendations to the conference
are in http://www.globalknowledge.org/english/archives/mailarchives/afr-fem/afrfem-apr98/0222.html.
(type address on one line).
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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ECA Press Release No. 45
CONFERENCE ENDS ON HIGH NOTE AS AFRICAN LEADERS ENDORSE PUSH
FOR WOMEN'S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
For more information, please visit the Conference Home Page at: http://www.un.org/depts/eca/eca40th
Send an e-mail message to: eca40th@un.org
or ecainfo@un.org
Write to:
Conference Secretariat
Economic Commission for Africa
P.O. Box 3001 Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
Phone: +251-1-51 89 19 (direct)
+251-1-51 72 00 Ext. 33700/33702
Fax: +251-1-51 22 33
Addis Ababa, Friday, May 1 1998
African leaders have added their voice to calls for concrete action
to ensure the full and equal participation of women in the continent's
economic development.
The calls came at the close of a four-day international conference organized
by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) which ended in Addis Ababa
today, on the theme "African Women and Economic Development: Investing
in our Future".
At a Forum of Heads of state and Government, the leaders -- President
Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, President Festus Mogae of Botswana, Ethiopia's
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Algeria's Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, Ghana's
Vice-President John Atta-Mills, and Uganda's Vice-President Wandira Specioza
Kazibwe -- reiterated the need to eradicate poverty in Africa with specific
attention to women, who bear the brunt of poverty on the continent.
Also participating in the Forum was United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan -- who is in Ethiopia on the first leg of an 11-day tour of
several countries in eastern Africa -- ECA Executive Secretary K. Y. Amoako,
and Organization of African Unity (OAU) Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim,
who chaired the event.
Vice-president Kazibwe received a standing ovation from the delegates
for her intervention, in which she stressed Africa's need to get its priorities
right -- beginning with meeting basic requirements like food and shelter
-- before addressing what she described as somewhat "esoteric"
concerns.
"How can we get into the global village when we have no food, shelter
or water? How can you can yourselves men when there is no food in your
homes?" she asked. On the subject of information and communication
technologies, one of the four themes of the Conference, the Ugandan vice-president
argued that while their use and development was important, they would not
necessarily solve Africa's problems or even become utilizable as long as
basic needs continued to go unfulfilled.
President Mogae identified poverty as being at the root of Africa's
problems, adding that poverty had increasingly become feminized.
Prime Minister Zenawi said he supported meaningful affirmative action
for Africa's women, as long as it was devoid of tokenism. He exhorted women
to be the agents of their own development, telling a panel of African women
in the Forum that "in my experience, if you want something you have
to take it, no one is going to give it to you." Without ensuring linkages
with grassroots women, he insisted, the goal of empowering women would
remain utopian.
Earlier, at a consultative meeting held by more than 60 African ministers,
ECA's convening power was applauded and the ministers asked that similar
meetings be held in future, and if possible institutionalized. The ministers
from member states were drawn from a wide range of disciplines, including
education, finance, land and agriculture.
They agreed that many of the strategies and actions suggested by participants
at the conference could, if implemented, lead to gender equity and as such
greater participation of women in economic development and governance.
The ministers remarked that the youth present at the conference demonstrated
a concern for their future and a readiness to participate in development
activities of their nations.
The Conference, which coincided with the 40th anniversary of ECA, was
convened in the context of the mandate of ECA's African Centre for Women
(ACW) to support implementation of the global and regional platforms of
action aimed at economic and political empowerment of women.
Close to 1,000 people -- among them policy-makers, civil society leaders,
NGO representatives, youth, and bilateral partner and UN agency representatives
-- took part in the Conference, which emerged with a number of strategic
proposals for action, among them:
- Including a gender perspective in national accounts and other data;
- Establishing partnerships to mainstream gender in key institutions
and mechanisms;
- Establishing mechanisms to ensure gender-disaggregated national statistics
and accounts;
- Integrating gender concerns into national budgetary procedures;
- Promoting and protecting women's access to and ownership of land in
rural and urban areas;
- Facilitating women's access to markets and regional trade, and building
their entrepreneurial capacity;
- Mobilizing resources for the setting up of community social services
and insurance programmes to facilitate women's access to basic social services;
and
- Promoting gender-sensitive credit schemes.
To ensure follow-up and implementation of the Conference outcomes, the
organizers are convening tomorrow with some of ECA's partners, in particular
NGO actors, to concretize on next steps.
The organizers will seek endorsement of the strategic actions from a
larger group of African leaders at the upcoming OAU summit in Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso in June. In addition, ECA intends to organize a number of
sub-regional meetings, to sensitize a wider audience about the Conference
outcomes as well as to galvanize local alliances of women into advocacy
and lobbying at the national level.
ACW's director Josephine Ouedraogo stressed at a post-Conference briefing
for journalists that the strategy for implementation is enshrined in the
Centre's mandate. She announced that a group of women's organizations represented
at the Conference had pledged a total of US$ 100,000 as seed money to galvanize
further fund-raising efforts by ECA and its partners.
On the first day of the Conference, Messrs Salim and Amoako announced
the establishment of an African Women's Committee for Peace and Development,
with the aim of putting women at the epicentre of conflict resolution and
peace-making. ECA and OAU will jointly run the Committee's secretariat,
with precise modalities yet to be determined.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the Africa
Policy Information Center (APIC), the educational affiliate of the Washington
Office on Africa. APIC's primary objective is to widen the policy debate
in the United States around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa,
by concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant information and
analysis usable by a wide range of groups individuals.
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