Empowering Women in the Developing World

Time: Tuesday, October 14, 2008

By Abigail Colodner & Kristýna Syslová

Women's empowerment in developing countries and its interconnected key issues, such as the role of culture, tradition, education, religion and economics, were discussed at this unique debate that was moderated by Jonathan Terra, a political scientist from the USA. He raised a number of crucial questions, one of which was: “Is the women's empowerment issue just a women's issue or should men also take part in this process? Do women want to be policymakers or just policy takers?”

Nomse Q.J. Dube, Ambassador of South Africa in the Czech Republic, stressed the importance of cooperation between genders in creating gender equality. She called upon women to ensure that they will be ''bringing up responsible men''.

According to Trudy Stevenson, a member of the Zimbabwean Parliament, to ''think strategically'' is the key element for women‘s empowerment, and women should be respected as potential leaders.

This noble goal was challenged in the speech of Ondřej Horký, the researcher from the International Relations Institute, who argued that ''looking at lower level'' achievements is sometimes better than polemicizing about ''the top level'‘ ones. He also stressed that acknowledging the ''gender indicators'' is ''very important, especially in the developmental process''.

The debate then turned to the issue of economics and its crucial role in women's empowerment in the developing countries. The importance of strategy was highlighted once more, this time in terms of funding and investment management. Nomse Q.J. Dube stressed the key importance of “womenomics” (women’s economics) and looking at spending of the World Bank, etc. She also noted that we have to be careful with analyzing the issue of women's empowerment, particularly in terms of fulfilling women's interests, that we need to go beyond speeches, conferences, treaties and international law documents and acknowledge that a lot of money is not invested effectively, and not according to women's interests at all. Zdislava Kratěnová, working for the Czech- based NGO, Humanitas Afrika, agreed with Nomse Q.J. Dube at this point. She stated that indeed, ''it is extremely difficult to help women in developing countries'' because setting up projects is very costly and aid is not, in many cases, used effectively and efficiently.

Despite all of the appalling examples and pessimistic issues, the debate was closed rather optimistically. ''Think strategically! Think big!'' exclaimed Trudy Stevenson. “If one strategy will not work, change it, but do not give up. (…) Together we can make a change!”