***************************************************************************
The electronic version of this document has been prepared at the Fourth
World Conference on Women by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
in collaboration with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women
Secretariat.
***************************************************************************
AS WRITTEN


Fourth World Conference on Women 

Statement by FAWZI H. AL-SULTAN,
President of IFAD INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 


Madam Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

One of the participants in a Conference on Rural Women which IFAD helped 
to organize three years ago used the following words:

"We work day and night, winter and summer. We are not complaining. Still 
we feel sorrow because our work is not mentioned, because we are paid 
less than men, because the tools of production and services are only 
designed for men.”

Recognition, fair returns, appropriate means. Her words set out 
poignantly the unfulfilled hopes of many women around the world and 
express what is perhaps the key challenge that has brought us to Beijing 
for this Fourth World Conference on Women.

Among international institutions, IFAD has a unique mandate focusing 
exclusively on hunger and poverty. From the beginning, as we searched 
for cost-effective, sustainable ways to help the poor to raise their 
food production, improve their productivity and incomes, we realized how 
central was the economic role of women to all these goals.

Ironically, while rural women across the developing world produce the 
bulk of food, and carry out its processing and preparation, women 
themselves are particularly vulnerable to hunger and poverty. In fact, a 
growing majority of the more than one billion absolute poor in the 
world, are now women and the phrase the "feminization of poverty" has 
assumed a piercing reality. Moreover women who are malnourished, often 
illiterate and vulnerable to disease, have limited prospects of helping 
their children to attain fruitful or productive lives. So the cycle of 
deprivation threatens to run across generations. 

In a real sense, therefore, rural women are at the intersection of 
hunger and poverty. Yet at the same time, they are the main hope of 
surmounting these tragedies. Whenever they have the opportunities to 
better their lives, the response of rural women is always enthusiastic, 
and often effective.

Poor women like other poor groups, smallholder farmers, the landless, 
herders and the like, are effective entrepreneurs. They are sensitive to 
the problems that limit their productivity, and imaginative in 
overcoming those constraints when offered the means to do so. Moreover, 
the experience of IFAD and others demonstrates that greater incomes in 
the hands of women contribute much more to improving the household's 
nutritional and health status than comparable increases in men's 
incomes. A rewarding economic role also allows women the possibility of 
exercising more fully their human rights and having a greater voice in 
decision-making in their families and communities.

Fundamental of course is assuring adequate access to education and 
health services for women. Beyond this must be the willingness to listen 
to the women we intend to assist as well as elicit their own active 
participation. This is critical for understanding their real needs and 
priorities, and for designing and implementing interventions that help 
them to overcome the difficulties they face. Particularly important is 
to help them organize themselves and pool their talents and experience, 
enabling them to confront more equally a world that appears, and often 
is, hostile to poor women. In this connection NGOs often can play an 
extremely valuable role and IFAD has ` benefited greatly by their 
collaboration.

One interesting instance of mobilizing women is the Women's Federations 
in China whose work IFAD is supporting through several projects. These 
Federations help women to t organize themselves and to participate in 
literacy and training programmes as well as utilize credit and take 
advantage of new income-generating activities. A key factor in their 
success is the impressive commitment of the WF Staff.

Another example, this one focussing on credit and savings, is an IFAD-
supported project in Tamil Nadu in India. : There, an NGO is helping to 
sensitize women and to form self help groups. Through these groups, the 
women undertake savings which are at once a source of small loans as 
well as serve as collateral to access much larger volumes of credit from 
a commercial bank. Working through the groups, the women f have gained 
confidence to deal with banks, technical agencies ; and officials as 
well as undertake collective actions. Their S empowerment is perhaps the 
most significant benefit of this innovative project. 

Projects such as these show clearly that even very poor 0 s women can 
make effective use of loans and repay them with a discipline that would 
be the envy of commercial bankers. Women truly are "bankable".

Of course, credit by itself is not enough. It has to be complemented 
with appropriate technology and extension as well as combined with 
action on land tenure and ownership of productive assets.

The latter is important since land improvements and other investments 
are more readily carried out by owners rather than by those who merely 
rent assets and who will thus derive little long term benefit from 
improving their value. Moreover lack of ownership can block access to 
credit and other services. Women are particularly vulnerable in this 
regard since under customary laws their rights of landownership and 
inheritance have often been subject to significant limitations. This is 
an issue that needs continuing attention, especially in the context of 
the growing numbers of female-headed rural households.

Appropriate "tools of production and services" for women are equally 
vital. We are giving particular priority to developing technology 
packages for crops and livestock of interest to women farmers, including 
for example vegetable cultivation, utilizing the potential of agro-
forestry and improved husbandry methods for poultry, rabbits, goats and 
other small ruminants. 

Perhaps the most acute constraint for women is time availability. Women 
work longer hours than men, but much of their working time is consumed 
by household tasks. Reducing the drudgery and hours required for such 
chores is essential to allow them the opportunity to undertake 
productive economic activities. With a little effort many labour-saving 
innovations can be found. Improved cooking stoves in the Cote d'Ivoire 
for example, are allowing women to reduce sharply the time required for 
smoking fish as well as reducing the amount of fuel used. Access to 
grain mills in a project in Senegal has reduced food preparation time, 
as have more effective preparation methods for cassava in a project in 
Angola. All such improvements open a window for poor overworked women to 
enjoy more fruitful lives. 

Indeed, IFAD has worked with its partners to open such windows of 
opportunity for millions of women. This is sometimes through specific 
women's projects. Increasingly however, it is through targeted 
components in broader interventions that ensure that women beneficiaries 
have full and t fair access to project services. In fact over the last 
three years IFAD has provided about USD 420 million to help make women's 
economic role more productive. Over the next three years we expect to 
provide about USD 520 million to finance activities to help women raise 
their productivity and incomes. These projects are expected to benefit 
some 11.25 million poor women. 

Madam Chairman, 

At the end of this 20th century, we have gained enough technical 
experience and knowledge to overcome the constraints that women have 
inherited from history. Of course, we need to develop them further and 
to exchange ideas and information with the many NGOs, local institutions 
and official agencies working with determination and devotion in this 
field.

IFAD stands ready to work with others in this regard. In one significant 
initiative for this purpose, we are helping to organize in November, a 
Conference on Hunger and Poverty in Brussels with the specific aim of 
building an operational coalition of NGOs, national and international 
institutions to join hands to eliminate hunger and poverty. In this 
endeavour, women, especially rural women, will be at the centre.

But for such efforts to succeed fully in providing women with the 
recognition and the means they need, a new perspective in society is 
essential. The constraints that women face are not intrinsic, indeed 
most of them are "man-made".

What societies have done to limit the lives and potential of women, 
society can, and must, undo. Only societies that enable women to be real 
partners will be able to tap the country' s full productive and creative 
potential to build fulfilling lives for all its people. Sadly, many 
societies today still try to hobble along on one and a half legs. It is 
time that they learnt to base themselves on two equal and complementary 
supports, male and female. This Beijing Conference will I hope be a 
decisive step in moving towards such a goal. 

Thank you.