The turn of the millennium saw 189 governments pledge to
improve the conditions of the millions of people living in poverty around the world by the year 2015. This commitment was broken down into eight target
areas, which became known as the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). September will see another gathering of global leaders
in New York
to discuss the progress made thus far and to review what still needs to be
done. With only five years left until the deadline, a monumental amount of work and
change is required if these goals are to have any hope of being.
The third MDG is
concerned with the promotion of gender
equality and the empowerment of
women, with an emphasis placed upon reducing the disparity between men and
women in education. For a better and more sustainable future, education is
vital. With knowledge nor skills the poverty cycle cannot be broken and the
poor will remain unable to help themselves. Currently, statistics from Oxfam show that of the 1.3 billion people living in extreme
poverty, two thirds of them are women. Such a figure is almost impossible
to comprehend but even more difficult to grasp is the fact that it is women who
are working two thirds of the world’s labor hours and yet they only earn 10% of
the global income.
We
can see how poverty is not simply about
a lack of resources but also very much linked to under-representation, missing
opportunities and about a lack of power. As the Global Fund for Women notes, research
has demonstrated that sending girls to
school has hugely beneficial effects, not only personally but for their
families, communities and society in general. Educating women helps to protect
the health of children as well as making economic sense for developing economies.
Recently, Ban Ki-moon the
Secretary-General of the UN, was quoted as saying that women were the “glue that holds our societies and our
nations together” illustrating the need to remove the current social,
economic and political obstacles which many women face.
Progress has been
made, especially with regard to parity in primary education in many countries of the Global South, however this positive trend has unfortunately not yet spilled over to the secondary
level of schooling in the majority of cases. Bangladesh is held up as the great
success story with parity at both levels of education having been accomplished
in the relatively short time of ten years. Therefore, we know it is possible and so we must keep pushing for governments to do more
and to commit more resources and money.
Take Action and demand that your government
upholds its promise to end global poverty and make a positive difference to
the lives of millions. The ‘Commit in
September’ website has a petition which you can sign and to send to President Obama calling on him and
congress to reaffirm his commitment to these goals.
*Photo credit: Elizabeth Rappaport
Congratulations for the initiative, women should have more respect in this millennium.
Posted by: Rodrigo | August 18, 2010 at 01:29 PM