Women - men - gender. - Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

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STRUCTURING GLOBALIZATION SOCIALLY
The rediscovery of women – gender equality as smart economic policy?
Equal rights for women and men are indispensable
for democracy and human rights. There are very
good economic reasons for this also. The unequal
treatment of men and women costs the global
economy billions annually.
The World Bank has addressed this through its
Gender Action Plan and German development cooperation
is also increasingly accepting the importance
of instruments for the economic integration
of women. Parallel to this, however, the international
trade regime must provide women producers
from the South access to markets in the
North.
This co-relation of “Gender Equality as smart Economic
Policy” was debated by experts from the
fi eld of international development cooperation at
a conference in Bonn in October 2008. At the beginning
of the conference, the former chairperson
of the Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW),
Ingrid Matthäus-Meier, presented the Gender Action
Plan of the World Bank. Taking four areas of
action, participants discussed how far this Plan
could contribute towards reduction of female poverty
and increased growth of the economy, and
what enabling conditions would be necessary for it
to succeed.
Taking China and India as examples, the wellknown
commentator on politics and current affairs,
Christa Wichterich, examined how far international
trade and world market integration have
contributed towards creating better job and income
opportunities for women and eliminating
gender-imbalances. In the case of both countries,
the fi ndings demonstrated that although new jobs
and, therefore, new opportunities for women did
emerge, yet there was an enormous disparity in
income in society in general, and also between
women
The third presentation by Ulrike Chini of Oikocredit
focused on the role of micro-credits for
women in achieving development. Micro-credits
can help in acquiring qualifi cations, securing income,
education and health, increasing purchasing
power, creating more job opportunities and promoting
the regional economy, provided conducive,
enabling conditions exist. These include professional
micro-fi nancing institutions, a holistic approach,
that is, loans as a component of development
work, training and consultancy, the participation
of women borrowers and the provision of
additional fi nancial services.
In the last section, the central issue was, whether
economic empowerment can help achieve the millennium
development goals and to what extent.
Marita Steinke, division head at the Federal Ministry
for Economic Cooperation and Development,
drew attention to the fact that focusing on the
MDGs had once again revealed where the defi cits
in the individual areas lay, and she further informed,
that indicators had been developed to
measure the achievement of the goals. Further instruments,
such as the Gender Action Plan of the
World Bank and regional approaches, such as the
Maputo and SADC Protocols also contribute to the
attainment of the goals. At the same time, however,
economic change must go hand in hand with
social change, so that, for example, the lack of
property law or the state laws do not become
obstacles to economic empowerment.