Women’s empowerment and gender equality are essential to achieve poverty eradication
and human development according to wellknown social economist Professor Naila Kabeer of the
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, U.K.

Delivering a keynote address at the First Session of the Committee on Emerging Social Issues at UNESCAP on 4 September, she emphasized the importance of understanding the complexities of gender inequality and investing in women and women’s empowerment to reduce poverty.

Professor Kabeer, who is an expert in the field of gender, poverty and population policy, spoke on the subject of “Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication, and the Millennium Development Goals: Promoting Women’s Capabilities and Participation”.

According to her, gender inequality exists in all societies and countries, regardless of the level of development; it exists in groups within a society and within other forms of inequality, she said. She stressed that gender inequality was the “most marked and most pervasive form of inequality in a society”. Gender inequality is not only confined to the private domain of the home, but it is also
reflected in the public institutions like the state and markets. Most importantly, she noted that gender relations structure forms of production and reproduction, which leads to gender inequality having a direct impact on economic and human development.

Professor Kabeer underscored that the third Goal on gender equality and empowerment of women of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would not easily be achieved without a heightened awareness of the “positioning of women at the intersection of productive and reproductive activities”. “It also means that MDGs… cannot be achieved in isolation from structural inequalities that give
rise to them. If gender inequality is part and parcel of the processes of poverty and discrimination in a society, it must constitute part and parcel of measures to eradicate these conditions”, she said.
The Millennium Development Goal on gender equality focuses only on achieving targets for girl’s education, yet increasing women’s access to resources and paid employment, as well as increasing women’s opportunities and capacity in political participation in national and local government are necessary to achieve the overall goals of eradicating poverty and promoting development, she
stressed.

Naila Kabeer discussed the importance of women’s economic, social and political empowerment in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Increasing women’s access to education has powerful effects on human development. Women’s education leads to lower fertility rates, healthier children who are more likely to receive an education, women’s increased participation in decisionmaking
procedures, as well as women’s assertion of their rights. It is important to ensure that the education system does not reinforce social inequalities, and that there is no gender bias within the school system, she said.

Women’s access to paid employment outside agriculture must also be increased to reduce household poverty, although particular attention must be paid to women’s exploitative work conditions, women’s work in the informal economy, and women’s double burden of paid and domestic work. According to Professor Kabeer, political participation of women in local and national governments must be promoted in order to increase their representation and achieve women’s empowerment.

Professor Kabeer noted that women’s increased participation in both local and national governments leads to development because women often represent different priorities from men and are more likely to allocate resources to public health services and child care for example. She emphasized that women’s agency and collective action are central to the process of increasing women’s voice and challenging patriarchal social structures.

She reiterated that men and boys have to be part of any efforts to end gender discrimination. Her presentation powerfully contributed to the thesis that women’s empowerment must provide the basis for sustainable development, poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Professor Kabeer is the author of “Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought” — a thoughtprovoking book on the marginal status of women’s needs in current development policy — and the most recent “Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Development Goals: A handbook for policy makers and other stakeholders”