Women must reclaim development and revise development policy in order to secure money and progress for women’s rights.
At the worldwide CIVICUS Assembly in Glasgow on June 23, women civil society leaders from across the world gathered to discuss how the money promised at G8 could be used to support women’s organisations. The CIVICUS World Assembly is a forum for international civil society representatives to get together, exchange ideas, experiences and build strategies for a just world.
“If the development pie is growing, where is the women’s dividend and how is it reaching women’s hands?” asked Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Devaki Jain, from the Institute of Social Studies Trust in Delhi, India, argued that women’s voices needed to be part of shaping national development strategies to pay a real dividend for women’s rights. She pointed out that, since the seventies, women had gained on rights, but lost out on development.
“We must now claim development and revise development policy and have women shaping macro-economic policy, rather than just getting a share of the pie,” Jain said.
Sylvia Borren, executive director of the Netherlands Organisation for International Development agreed.
“While the government is not engaging with civil society in general and women’s movements groups in particular, macro economic policy won’t change,” Borren said.
Heyzer pointed out that in 2003, $69 billion was donated for development worldwide, but of that $69 billion, only 3.6 percent ($400 million) had a focus on gender equality. Over the same period, $900 billion was spent on arms.
Borren called for more transparent financials, in order to see where the money was actually being spent. The previous day at the CIVICUS conference, she had asked Hilary Benn, UK Minister for International Development, how much of the aid from Britain was going on women’s issues, and he was unable to respond.
Borren argued that, to make a meaningful difference, more women needed to take transformational leadership positions in a general sense, not just on women’s issues. “There is a huge disconnection between discourse and financial reality. We have to move ourselves into the bigger space to change that,” she said.
Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, president of the African Women’s Development Fund, supported Borren said there have been gains, but there has been more rhetoric than action on the ground. “Lip service is being paid to gender equality and the business of protecting women’s right across the world is unfinished business,” Adeleye-Fayemi said.
Nouzha Skalli, a member of parliament for Morocco who ran for election ten times before she gained her seat, called on more women to enter the political arena.
“We used to say women are half of society, but we are more than half of society because the life of women is linked to the life of children,” she said.
She also supported the idea of placing development money directly in the hands of women. “When you put money in their hands, it’s more than money. It can be used to bring about deep, transformative change,” she added.