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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


Women Pivot of Development by Heitor Gurgulino de Souza
Rector, United Nations University
at the Fourth World Conference on Women,
Beijing, People's Republic of China
on 7 September 1995


I. Introduction: Women & Development

The United Nations University (UNU) is honoured to be participating in this
United Nations Fourth World Conference -- which is one more step in the long
struggle to recognize women's pivotal role in development. What this conference
signals perhaps most clearly is the recognition that strengthening the role and
participation of women around the world, we are truly speaking to the concerns
of all humanity. Human development very much hinges on policies that release and
recognize the productive potential of half the globe's people.

The UNU has been actively involved in the preparatory process for this
conference. We hope that we have been able in various ways to contribute to the
Conference objectives of equality, growth and the assurance of women's
participation in a more peaceful world. The University is grounded in the core
philosophy that intellectual reason and detached scientific investigation are
essential components to the creation of viable human community.

In the quest for a more liveable world, it has become more and more apparent
that the governance of society in peace and harmony is contingent on the
resolution of a number of other endemic ills -- like inequitable economic growth
patterns, unchecked population increase, misuse of the planet' s finite
resources, or ill-considered introduction of the wrong modern technologies.
These are all matters in which the experiences and perspectives of women are
absolutely vital.

While the UNU's concern with improving women's daily lives has spanned a variety
of our scientific and scholarly efforts coordinated through the UNU Headquarters
in Tokyo, Japan, as well as through a global network, for the past 20 years, I
would like here to single out two specific priorities of the last five years:
the research being carried out at the UNU World Institute for Development
Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) in Helsinki, Finland, and the investigations on
going at the UNU Institute for New Technologies (UNU/INTECH) at Maastricht in
the Netherlands. Both endeavours have helped to provide important scientific and
scholarly inputs to this Beijing conference.

II. Women and Jobs

At UNU/WIDER, an important focus has been on the manner in which the process of
globalization has affected female labour -- both in a quantitative and
qualitative sense. While the numbers of jobs for women may have increased, their
working conditions have not, and may indeed be deteriorating. At the same time,
layoffs due to restructuring or downsizing almost inevitably hit women first.
Like other marginalized groups before them, women often find themselves "last to
be hired, first to be fired."

Since women span the productive and reproductive spheres of activity, more
informed social policies for working women are crucial. The structural
adjustments in developing countries and marketization in the former socialist
countries are both forces operating to the detriment of women. Cutbacks in
social services for working mothers leaves many women workers unable to cope
with their dual responsibilities, as well as leaving them at an unfair
disadvantage vis-à-vis men in the labour market.

UNU/WIDER studies demonstrate that new policies are needed to mitigate the
adverse effects on women of reform and restructuring. Governments need to commit
themselves to creating a more level playing field for men and women workers.
Support structures for employed women with families -- like maternity leaves,
child care facilities, health care for mother and child -- are crucially
important. Also necessary are equality or anti-discrimination laws.

III. Women in Cyberspace

In the University studies of the impact of new technologies, centred at
UNU/INTECH in the Netherlands, the work is guided by the conviction that
technologies tend to affect women's job opportunities differently than those of
men. While this has tended to be true down through history, it is even more
marked today in the case of the application of new information advances -- the
computer and its allied technologies in cyberspace.

Begun in 1992, the UNU/INTECH research focuses on the impact of information
technology on women's employment in the developing world. It is first
identifying the points of government intervention, especially with education and
training, that would help women benefit on a par with men from employment
opportunities arising from new modes of production. Results of the initial
phases of these studies have just been published by UNU in the volume entitled,
Women Encounter Technology.

Moving from this, research is now focussed on assessing the impact of
information technologies on women's work in east and southeast Asia. With its
fast growing economies, this region encapsulates the impact of novel
technological changes on women's paid work. On the one hand, automation has led
to technological redundancies, particularly in manufacturing. At the same time,
advances in banking, finance and home work technologies have created new jobs
for women. A host of new issues are emerging from this research which has been
carried out by 26 NGOs committed to the cause of women workers. Results of the
research are being made available for the first time here in Beijing.

In the shaping of national technology plans and human resource strategies,
women's limited political and economic power is a reality that must be taken
into account. UNU/INTECH has recognized this through a series of workshops which
are bringing together senior civil servants and women's organizations. The first
was held last March in New Delhi.

The UNU/INTECH workshops are shedding new light on the difficult problems of
including women-specific questions in government policy and resource planning
discussions. They are a forum that stress the need of women to have greater
access to decisions on such basic concerns as health and safety measures,
technical training, and computer-related vocational and business education.

IV. Giving Women a Voice

One thing that has emerged most forcibly from our investigations on both the
economic and technological fronts is the important role that women's groups can
play in policy formation. Women's organizations can be particularly crucial in a
watchdog capacity. Beyond what governments can and should do, the UNU research
also clearly demonstrate the indispensable role that women's organizations can
play -- particularly in the crucial watchdog capacity. It is clear that women' s
organizations must be more closely involved in consultations and decision-making
within government strategy sessions. Women's voices are essential to more
rational and humane government policies.

The progress of the human endeavour can be monitored in small day-to-day
decisions -- the sorts of decisions that women must wrestle with every day in
many parts of the developing world. Whether to cut down one more tree to warm a
child at night, to hoe a few more metres up an already eroded slop, to walk one
more kilometre in search of water. The bottom line of this Beijing conference is
giving hundreds of millions of women like this a voice in their own future and
that of their families. At the United Nations University, we are proud to have
played a small role in that worthy endeavour.

Thank you very much.

The United Nations University Headquarters 53-70, Jingumae 5-chome Shibuya-ku,
Tokyo 150 Japan Tel. (03) 3499-2811 Fax (03) 3499-2828 E-mail mbox@hq.unu.edu