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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.
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AS WRITTEN


PRESENTATION BY WIDE - NETWORK WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT EUROPE
TO THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN,
BEIJING, SEPTEMBER 9 1995


The Fourth World Conference on Women provides a unique opportunity to
see the framework for achieving human rights - civil, political, social,
economic and cultural, in other words for achieving equality,
development and peace.

In the last fifty years, in some countries, women have gained
recognition and extension our rights; some now have improved access to
education and training and control over income and other resources;
worldwide women are playing increasing roles in decision-making in
local, national and international structures. Yet, despite progress on
women's rights, there has been no significant redistribution or
reallocation of resources, or sharing of power. Furthermore, a number of
factors are combining to jeopardise even those gains hard won by women:
the globalisation of the neo-liberal economic model, ideological and
religious fundamentalisms, and the environmental crisis. WIDE wishes to
focus here on the former.

The so-called free market model of economic development has reached new
levels of universality and sophistication in the 1 980s and 1990s with
the neo-liberal policies, promoted with renewed vigour by the G7 and the
international financial institutions to deal with the debt crisis. There
is irrefutable evidence that this economic model, as it is currently
structured and as it functions, is increasing poverty and entrenching
inequalities between countries, and within countries on the grounds of
gender, social group, race and ethnicity. North, South, East and West, a
small elite accumulate great wealth, the majority earn a little, and
growing numbers are surplus to the needs of the global economy. The
global economy is founded on women's work - unwaged work in the home and
community, low-waged work in the formal and informal sectors, and as
migrant workers . It depends on women's energy and goodwill. It is
founded on the wasteful and unsustainable use of natural resources for
over-consumption by some, and deprivation for many. Those with power and
wealth appear to accept no obligations to those without.

The free market model has little time for social or economic justice or
notions of ecologically-sound development. The international community
talks of sustainable development, of democracy, of accountability and
transparency, of women's rights. Its primary strategy to reduce poverty
and inequality is integration into the global economy - a global economy
which is characterised by inequality, exclusion, and war. We must face
these policy contradictions. We must work for coherence in our
international relations: between development cooperation, foreign
policy, and trade.

Women cannot enjoy our equal rights locally, in a situation of growing
poverty globally.

WIDE does not have a blueprint for the future, but we are sure of
certain essential principles: that the well-being of women, men and
children is superior to the maximisation of profit; that social policy,
personal and cultural life cannot be subordinated to economic policy;
that equality for women, and all people experiencing discrimination, is
central to development and peace.

We have identified five critical first steps towards building an
alternative.

1. Our societies must address and resolve social issues - such as
childcare and family responsibilities and the inequitable division of
domestic work between women and men. Work of all kinds, unwaged and
waged, has to be revalued and reorganised.

2. We must democratise local, national and international political and
economic structures, including the international financial institutions,
and make them accountable to the majority of the world's people.

3. We must urgently and systematically remove all blockages to change,
such as the debt burden on one level, and violence against women at
another.

4. We must require transitional corporations, including international
finance, agri-business, and media, to comply with human rights
standards, and harness for people-centred development the wealth they
control.

5. We must reform and revitalise the United Nations so that it can
provide democratic and accountable global leadership.

WIDE will continue to build alliances with women, and men, around the
world to promote this alternative vision. We will work with others to
create opportunities at every level in which women and men can build a
more equal, sustainable, peaceful and compassionate world.

WIDE - Network Women and Development Europe 10 Square Ambiorix, Brussels
B-1040, Belgium Tel: 322 732 4410