Meeting of Ministers on Committee on Women and Development: Opening remarks by K. Y. Amoako

Abstract

Opening Remarks by K. Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) at the Meeting of Ministers on Committee on Women and Development. Dr. Amoako, on his remarks highlighted that, there are still fundamental challenges that remain to be addressed. The first challenge is how to bring about change in the process of eradicating poverty in Africa where it is estimated that over 70 percent of the poor are women. Although women and men share the burdens of poverty, in most societies in Africa, women are also subject to socially imposed constraints that further limit their opportunities to improve economic conditions or to equal access to public services and consumption goods. The second challenge which is linked to the first is how to address the gender inequality that persists in access to and control of productive, human, and social capital assets. The third challenge is whether the International Development Target (IDT) to reduce poverty by half by the year 2015 can be achieved and sustained over the next two decades if macroeconomic policies do not adequately incorporate gender dimensions. ECA as the main UN organ for development in Africa has also been involved in the recent initiative of the African Leaders: the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). We are working on priority sectors as identified in NEPAD and as requested by OAU Member States at their Lusaka Summit in July 2001. The NEPAD will in future be a vehicle for making significant transformation of the African economy, and through it, opportunities exist for integrating gender perspectives.