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`No development without gender equality`
2005-07-12 07:51:10
By Judica Tarimo and Concilia Niyibitanga of IJMC
Gender equality is a prerequisite for development and poverty reduction, governments and the world over should promote it, a Cabinet minister said yesterday.
Dr Asha-Rose Migiro of the Community Development, Gender and Children docket made the remarks during World Population Day celebrations in Dar es Salaam.
She said gender equality was among the fundamental rights and freedoms of people that should be recognised by governments.
Dr Migiro added that the international community was now realising the importance of gender equality, citing a number of international agreements that addressed the issue such as the Commission on the Status of Women, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other European and African agreements on the rights of women.
The minister decried the notion that gender equality was an integral part of human rights only, saying it was also a development issue. She commended initiatives by governments to incorporate gender equality in their development plans and strategies.
’’Gender equality forms an important tool for development,’’ the minister told the gathering.
She said no country could prosper without quality education and improved economic and investment opportunities and reproductive and health services.
“But this cannot be achieved if there is no gender balance in education between men and women and boys and girls. All these are important in the fight against poverty and acceleration of sustainable social development.’’
Dr Migiro said the government was striving to enact laws and policies aimed at enhancing gender equality and ensuring enforcement of the same by establishing special desks to co-ordinate gender issues from the district to the national level.
’’Having laws, provisions in the country’s constitution that protect gender equality and national programmes on gender balance, participation of individuals, families and communities in implementing the idea is more than important,’’ she said.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director, Thoraya Ahmed, said in a statement read on his behalf by UNFPA Country Representative Nicolas Jones that gender equality was a cornerstone of development.
’’Equality is a goal that demands sustained political commitment and leadership.
Today, on World Population Day, I urge leaders at every level to speak about the great gains that equal right offers the entire human family and to take concrete and urgent action to make these right a reality,’’ Ahmed said.
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