-
Robert Engelman, Worldwatch Institute
The Number Left Out: Bringing Population Into the Climate Conversation
›December 9, 2010 // By Wilson Center Staff
Numbers swirl around climate change.
So many parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So many gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted. So many degrees Celsius of temperature rise that we hope won’t happen. Yet one number rarely comes into play when experts or negotiators talk about the changing atmosphere and the warming of the planet: the number of humans putting heat-trapping gases into the air.
The original version of this article, by Robert Engelman, appeared on the Worldwatch Institute’s Transforming Cultures blog.
The UK Met Office’s data set for September 2009 of more than 1,600,000 temperature readings from 1,700+ stations.
Numbers swirl around climate change.
So many parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So many gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted. So many degrees Celsius of temperature rise that we hope won’t happen. Yet one number rarely comes into play when experts or negotiators talk about the changing atmosphere and the warming of the planet: the number of humans putting heat-trapping gases into the air.
The relative silence isn’t hard to understand. Population is almost always awkward to talk about. It’s fraught with sensitivity about who has how many children and whether that is anyone else’s business. It’s freighted with sexuality, contraception, abortion, immigration, gender bias, and other buttons too hot to press into conversation. Yet two aspects of population’s connection to climate change cry out for greater attention – and conversation.
One is that population – especially its growth, but other changes as well – matters importantly to the future of climate change, a statement that as far as I can tell is not challenged scientifically. (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, accepts the accuracy of the so-called Kaya identity, which names population among the four factors that determine emissions growth from decade to decade.) And, two, addressing population in climate-friendly ways is also fundamentally people-friendly, in that it involves no “population control,” but rather the giving up of control – especially control of women’s bodies by people other than themselves.A new Worldwatch Institute report, which I authored, offers details, findings, and recommendations on both the importance of population in climate change and how to address it. The report looks at some of the history of the population-climate link – in particular, interesting work by William Ruddiman, who hypothesizes that the agricultural revolution contributed to global warming thousands of years ago. And it addresses the common objection that population growth can’t be that important in greenhouse gas emissions growth because countries with high per capita emissions tend to have smaller families than low-emitting countries.
Equity in per capita emissions, I argue, is an essential goal – and without it, no global effort to shrink emissions can succeed. The imperative of an equal sharing of atmospheric carbon space is among the most powerful arguments for a smaller world population. When greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide – such as methane and “black carbon” – are considered, per capita emissions gaps are not as wide as many writers believe. And the amount of all these gases that equal emitters can contribute without altering the atmosphere shrinks in direct proportion to population’s growth.
Arguments about population’s role in climate change are unnecessarily heated, however. Even if the growth of human numbers played only a minor role in emissions growth, it would be worth discussing – not because addressing population will somehow resolve our climate predicament, but because ultimately no other strategy on its own will either. We need the widest possible range of strategies – economic, political, technological, and behavioral – that are both feasible and consistent with shared human values.
On population, the most effective way to slow growth is to support women’s aspirations. Almost all women aspire to gain an education, to stand in equality with men, and to make decisions for themselves – including whether and when to give birth. Policies and programs to help women achieve these aspirations exist in many places. But they don’t get the attention, support and funding they deserve. And they are rarely seen as climate-change strategies.
As societies, we have the ability to end the ongoing growth of human numbers – soon, and based on human rights and women’s intentions. This makes it easy to speak of women, population, and climate change in a single breath.
Robert Engelman is vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute and the author of “Population, Climate Change, and Women’s Lives.” Please contact him if you are interested in a copy of the report.
Sources: UK Met Office, World Resources Institute.
Image Credit: Adapted from “Met Office Climate Data – Month by Month (September),” courtesy of flickr user blprnt_van, and report cover, courtesy of the Worldwatch Institute. -
From Cancun: Getting a Climate Green Fund
›Over 9,000 negotiators from 184 countries have gathered for the 16th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), known as COP-16, in Cancun, Mexico. No one expects a binding emissions reduction agreement, but a successful outcome on a set of decisions here – the so-called “balanced package” – will help build trust among countries and make progress towards a final emissions agreement next year.
One of the most important parts of the package is agreement on the creation of a green climate fund – an international fund designed to help developing countries adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
If the negotiations are as successful, as expected, the fund will be part of a package that also includes the architecture for an adaptation body, technology transfer, REDD-plus, and progress towards a binding international mitigation agreement that negotiators hope to conclude at COP-17 in Durban, South Africa.
An event Monday morning co-hosted by Oxfam and the Global Campaign for Climate Action, featured a variety of developed and developing country perspectives about what a new fund for mitigation and adaptation programs should look like.
The event was galvanized by a letter, currently being circulated here at the talks, signed by 215 civil society organizations and calling for “the establishment of a fair global climate fund at COP-16 that will meet the needs and interests and protect the rights of the most vulnerable communities and people around the world.” In opening comments and a question-and-answer session, panelists articulated some of the most contentious points that negotiators are currently discussing, some of the reasons why a green fund is so important, and the implications for global equity, sustainable development, and international security.
A main point under discussion right now is how the fund will be governed. The United States and other developed countries argue that the fund should work under the supervision of the UNFCCC but international financial institutions, like the World Bank, should also assist in creating the fund.
Judith McGregor, the UK ambassador to Mexico, argued in her opening statement that for the United Kingdom, “climate finance… is a clear, clear priority” at the COP, but that the World Bank would lend the fund legitimacy and make donors more confident in the fund’s ability to deliver. Tim Gore from Oxfam expressed the opinion held by many civil society organizations and delegates from developing countries, that the fund must “act under the authority of the UNFCCC… independent from institutions such as the World Bank,” because a new climate fund should have an equitable governance structure that includes the voices of developing countries, civil society members, indigenous peoples, women, and other stakeholders – not a majority share by the developed countries like at the World Bank.
Another stumbling block is how climate finance will be divided between adaptation and mitigation programs. Gore argued that adaptation and mitigation finance must be balanced 50-50, whereas currently “there is a huge adaptation gap… less than 10 percent of current climate finance is going to adaptation.” Evans Njewa, the lead finance negotiator representing the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), noted in his statement that “adaptation is the priority for the LDCs [in Cancun].”
The source of these funds is also a contentious issue that divides developed and developing countries. Under the Copenhagen Accord, most of the COP country parties agreed that developed countries would mobilize $30 billion in fast start finance by 2012 and $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate finance from public, private, and other “innovative sources,” such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade systems. Developed countries like the United States are mobilizing public funds for climate finance but argue that the majority of the $100 billion figure should be provided by private investments and that loans provided by development institutions as well as grants should also count.
Climate finance for adaptation will help make poor, rural communities in particular more resilient to the effects of climate change, including drought, floods and tropical storms, and therefore help the international community to achieve several related development milestones such as the Millennium Development Goals, according to Alzinda Abrea, finance minister of Mozambique.
Cate Owen of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) explained that investing in climate adaptation now “makes good sense” because “investing now in responding to climate change will lessen the long-term costs” to developed country donors.
The message that climate adaptation measures are becoming essential to sustainable development was perhaps delivered most forcefully by Florina Lopez, an indigenous person from Panama, who described the impacts that her people are already suffering as a result of climate change. Since her community survives by fishing, hunting and growing crops, severe flooding is disrupting indigenous ways of life and floods bring assaults on community health, like diarrhea, skin disease, and malnutrition. Community activities that contribute to development such as education and healthcare are also paralyzed by these impacts. Adaptation funding will be essential for her community to survive and to avoid disruptive displacement.
Still, perhaps the most compelling political reason for American taxpayers to invest in climate change adaptation in the developing world is the national security implications of the effects of climate change. A report issued this week by the Center for American Progress and the Alliance for Climate Protection explains why the United States must have a global climate investment strategy, despite adverse economic and political conditions domestically. Adaptation funding will “reduce risks of climate-related national security threats, including from severe floods or droughts in Pakistan and the Middle East” and strengthen our relationships with developing country recipients, including strategically important partners like India, Indonesia, and Brazil, write the authors. Finally, by managing displacement, migration, and violent conflict driven by the effects of climate change, such as water scarcity, climate change adaptation can help bolster international security and stability.
The establishment of a climate green fund here in Cancun is essential for an equitable and balanced international climate deal. A fund is first and foremost the moral imperative of developed countries, known as the Annex-I parties under the UNFCCC, who are historically responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. However, developed countries need not rely on the moral argument to convince policymakers and taxpayers that climate adaptation for the poorest and most vulnerable countries and people is a good investment.
Within the UN process itself, a robust, well-run, equitable green fund would help rebuild the trust lost between developed and developing countries at Copenhagen last year. In Gore’s words, Oxfam is “cautiously optimistic that we can get an agreement here in Cancun that rebuilds trust between rich and poor countries.”
Alex Stark is a program assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, working on the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program. She is attending the Cancun negotiations as part of the Adopt a Negotiator team.
Sources: Alliance for Climate Protection, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Center for American Progress, Global Campaign for Climate, Mozambique Ministry of Planning and Finance, Oxfam, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Women’s Environment and Development Organization.
Photo Credit: “Will you back a climate fund?,” courtesy of flickr user Oxfam International. -
Hans Rosling Double Feature: ‘The Joy of Stats’ on BBC and Population Growth at TED
›Hans Rosling, creator of Gapminder and professor of international health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, hosts a new documentary on the BBC called The Joy of Stats that takes a look at the breadth and depth of data available today to analysts and private citizens alike.
In the clip above, Rosling demonstrates his primary interest in world health, tracking life expectancy and income over the last 200 years to show both the remarkable progress that has been made but also the tremendous gap that remains between those at the top (the very rich and healthy) and those at the bottom (the very poor and sick).
Rosling has been a vocal (and visual) advocate for expanding people’s knowledge of the world by presenting statistics in innovative ways. “Statistics should be the intellectual sidewalks of a society, and people should be able to build businesses and operate on the side of them,” he said at a discussion at the Wilson Center in May 2009.
In particular, Rosling’s focus has been on health, poverty, and the developing world, where he’s advocated for increased focus on child and maternal health and education. “The role of the old West in the new world is to become the foundation of the modern world – nothing more, nothing less,” he said during a TED talk on population growth (see below) where he broke from his more flashy visuals and went analog – using IKEA boxes to illustrate population and consumption growth. “But it’s a very important role. Do it well and get used to it.”
Rosling’s Gapminder software has been incorporated into Google’s Public Data Explorer, where many development indicators from the World Bank, World Health Organization, and others can now be easily tracked by anyone. For more on Google Data and to see an example set of indicators (agriculture as a percentage of GDP vs. fertility rates over the last 50 years), check out this previous Eye On, on The New Security Beat.
Video Credit: “Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats – BBC Four,” courtesy of BBC, via YouTube, and “Hans Rosling on global population growth,” courtesy of TED. -
David Lawson, Wildlife Conservation Society
Afghanistan’s Non-Confrontational Conservation
›December 7, 2010 // By Wilson Center Staff
Excerpt from the Center for a Better Life:
Afghanistan is more than war and turmoil; it has a long and colorful history, strong cultures and a stunning landscape. It has enormous biodiversity, as it sits at the crossroads of what biologists call “biological realms.” The country, therefore, has plants and animals that also occur in Europe, northern Asia, India, south Asia and Africa. It has nine species of wild cats, which is the same as the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as an estimated 800 plant species that occur nowhere else in the world. In other words, Afghanistan is worth attention in terms of its biodiversity alone.These natural resources are also critically important from the people’s perspective. After 30 years of conflict, more than 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population relies directly on natural resources for their livelihood. Most of the inhabitants are rural and desperately poor by world standards. Child mortality is the highest in the world, and their infrastructure is mostly broken down and inoperable. The economy is donor-dependent, and the Afghan government is still in its infancy. Outside the capital of Kabul, governance sometimes seems non-existent. As a result, movement away from the major population centers can be very risky due to the presence of various insurgent groups.
And yet, what is seldom mentioned in newscasts and media is that the Afghans are proud and resilient. They want what everyone else wants: education for their children, healthcare for the young and elderly, and reliable livelihoods to support their families. Then they want to get on with their lives in their own unique, culturally diverse way, free of violence and conflict.
Understanding Cultures
Understanding these things is one reason why the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has been successful in Afghanistan. When hearing of the Society’s field work in this war-torn country, most people are surprised. They wonder how, with its pressing problems, Afghanistan can afford the time, let alone the resources, to conserve its remaining wildlife and wild places. But this is one of the core strengths of WCS – to offer assistance in conserving natural resources at a practical level within a country in need, like Afghanistan. As one of the oldest conservation organizations in the world, with more than 100 years of field conservation experience, the Society has extensive seasoning under extreme circumstances. Currently, WCS has more than 600 projects in place with 3,000 staff; and, many of these projects are in the most remote areas of the world.
Since 2006, USAID has supported WCS’s work in Afghanistan within three geographical areas – the northeast in Badakhshan Province’s Wakhan District, Bamiyan’s central province and the eastern, forested Nuristan province. Experts chose these areas because they believed they held the largest numbers of untouched remaining wildlife; this presumption generally proved correct. Through the years, WCS has created trust by having conservation teams on the ground and working year-round with local communities. Similar trust has been established with the relevant ministries by WCS’ central office, located in Kabul, through continuous presence and assistance.
Results are impressive. More than seven pieces of environmental legislation were enacted; 10,000 Afghans received conservation training; the first biological surveys in 30 years were completed (which doubled as crucial skills development exercises for Afghan scientists); the first wildlife/domestic stock disease assessments were accomplished, with corresponding human health effects, plus many more exemplary achievements. One of the more intriguing results was WCS’ ability to build local governance in the most remote communities, thus connecting communities that had seen no real government representatives for years. This link extended to district authorities then to provincial authorities, and finally to the Kabul central government. This extension of Afghanistan’s rule-of-law is paramount because it improves governance, which is one of the more crucial strategic needs in the country today.
How was a non-governmental conservation organization able to contribute to governance and rule-of-law? It is simple. Wildlife conservation is usually a non-confrontational issue, and most people, when exposed to the process, take an active interest and express opinions. Rural people have grown up with and are surrounded by wildlife everyday; they have local knowledge and feel comfortable discussing how things have changed. They want to be empowered to make natural resource decisions in the areas in which they live. WCS staff encourages local people to discuss species protection with their local and provincial governments. In some instances, WCS workers have taken government officers into communities that cannot recall ever seeing a government official. These processes and contacts evolve and can be used as basis for non-conservation related discussion. These processes and relationships become the building blocks for extending governance and empowering local communities. And, the process works.
Continue reading on the Center for a Better Life.
David Lawson is the Wildlife Conservation Society Afghanistan country director.
Photo Credit: “Bamiyan Band-e-Emir,” courtesy of flickr user USAID Afghanistan. USAID and WCS have been working in the Band-e-Amir lakes region since 2006 to create a national park. -
International Responses to Pakistan’s Water Crisis
›December 6, 2010 // By Michael KugelmanExcerpt from the executive summary of the NOREF Policy Brief, via the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre:
Pakistan faces a multidimensional water crisis that claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year. The root causes of the crisis are twofold:- Circumstantial, which are linked to poor water-resource management policies (including water-wasting flood irrigation);
- Structural, tied to factors deeply ingrained in politics and society such as the obsession with India, inequitable rural land-ownership and endemic water misgovernance (for example, exploitation of the rotational irrigation system to the detriment of the poor).
However, international responses must be measured. They should actively target the circumstantial causes but, at the same time, recognize that their ability to take on the structural ones is limited. While the international community can help mitigate the effects of the underlying structural drivers, Pakistan itself must take the ultimate steps to eliminate them.
Circumstantial causes can be addressed through international aid provision and international exchanges. Aid provision must be generous enough to meet Pakistan’s prodigious needs but modest enough to respect the country’s limited absorptive capacities. It should emphasize the restoration of infrastructure and distribution systems, be more responsive to the needs of Sindh and Baluchistan provinces, and be channeled through both government agencies and civil society.
Despite the challenges the international community faces in addressing the structural causes, opportunities do abound. These include embarking on back-channel diplomacy to bring Pakistan and India closer together and cooperative projects with Pakistanis to make water distribution more equitable. To be effective, international responses must target all affected parties and be sensitive to ground realities. They should also be mindful of indigenous success stories and the factors that bring about that success.
The full report, “International Responses to Pakistan’s Water Crisis: Opportunities and Challenges,” is available through the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre.
Michael Kugelman is program associate with the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Image Credit: Adapted from “USG Humanitarian Assistance to Pakistan for Floods in FY 2010 and FY 2011 (as of 30 Nov 2010),” courtesy of USAID and ReliefWeb. -
From Cancun: Roger-Mark De Souza on Women and Integrated Climate Adaptation Strategies
›“When you look at the negative impacts of climate change, the impacts on the poor and the vulnerable – particularly women – increase, so investing in programs that put women at the center is critical,” said Roger-Mark De Souza, vice president of research and director of the climate program at Population Action International (PAI), speaking to ECSP from the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. “There are a number of missed opportunities here in Cancun and in climate change deliberations overall that are not including women and are missing an opportunity to have a bigger bang for the buck, or power for the peso, as we say in Mexico.”
PAI hosted a side session with five panelists from Denmark, Ethiopia, Kenya, Suriname, and Uganda on “Healthy Women, Healthy Planet: Women’s Empowerment, Family Planning, and Resilience.” The session attracted more than 100 attendees and prompted incisive, informative questions, said De Souza.
“There was a call for additional research that is policy relevant that identifies some of the key entry points and added benefits at a country level,” said De Souza. “And there is a very strong call for youth partnerships from a number of youth advocates who are looking at medical and public health interventions and are desirous of including reproductive health programming as part of that.”
“One concrete next step for Cancun is to work with other civil society partners who are here who are tracking how gender is being integrated into the negotiating language, particularly with regard to financing mechanisms,” De Souza said.
Besides financing and the need for more research, De Souza said the key issues that emerged from the panel were: the importance of linking programs of different scales; ensuring women’s empowerment and ownership; and recognizing and replicating effective partnerships.
For more from Roger-Mark De Souza, see ECSP Focus Issue 19, “The Integration Imperative: How to Improve Development Programs by Linking Population, Health, and Environment.”
The “Pop Audio” series is also available as podcasts on iTunes. -
Joydeep Gupta, ChinaDialogue
Nervous Neighbors: China-India Water Relations
›December 3, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffExcerpted from the original article, “Nervous Neighbors,” on ChinaDialogue.net:
Only five rivers in the world carry more water than the Yarlung Zangbo, or Brahmaputra, as it is known when it reaches India. Only one carries more silt. Rising at a height of 5,300 meters in the Kailash range of the Middle Himalayas – an area holy to both Hindus and Buddhists – the river flows east through Tibet for 1,625 kilometers before taking a horseshoe bend, changing its name and flowing as the Brahmaputra into north-eastern India.
There, for 918 kilometers, it is both a lifeline, due to the water it carries, and a scourge, because of the floods it causes almost every year. It then takes a southward turn and flows into Bangladesh for 363 kilometers before it merges with the Ganges, together forming South Asia’s largest river, the Meghna, and flowing into the Bay of Bengal. This huge river, with its 25 large tributaries in Tibet and 105 in India, drains much of the eastern Himalayas.
As the world’s youngest mountain range, the Himalayas are particularly unstable – and so is the river. It has changed its course significantly at least once in the last 200 years, following a major earthquake. Smaller changes in course are common, wiping out farms and homes on one bank while depositing fertile silt on the other. Now humans are changing the course of this river: Chinese engineers have started to build the Zangmu hydroelectric power station in Lhoka prefecture, 325 kilometers from Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. The development has led to serious expressions of concern, particularly in India but also in China.
Continue reading on ChinaDialogue.net.
Joydeep Gupta is the project director (South Asia) of ChinaDialogue’s Third Pole Project.
Map Credit: Google Maps. -
Empowering Women in the Muslim World
›December 2, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffOriginally featured in the Wilson Center’s Centerpoint, November 2010.
For decades, women in the Middle East have actively struggled for equal status before the laws of their respective countries. They have strived to attain equal participation in politics and society, and progressive justice throughout the region. While they have made progress in some parts of the region, many challenges remain. The Wilson Center’s Middle East Program recently held three meetings to discuss challenges as well as progress to empowering women across the Muslim world.
A Modern Narrative
The American Islamic Congress (AIC) recently published a report, “A Modern Narrative for Muslim Women in the Middle East: Forging a New Future,” that highlights past and present triumphs and difficulties – economic, legal, political, religious, and social –for women’s rights throughout the region. On September 30, the Middle East Program co-sponsored a meeting with the AIC to review the status of women in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, based on findings in the AIC’s report.
Fawziah Al-Hani, manager of the Gherass Center for Social Education in Saudi Arabia, expressed frustration about the progress women have made in her native Saudi Arabia. She said women there are perceived as second-class citizens by the country’s legal, economic, political, religious, and social institutions. Women’s issues are rarely discussed in Saudi political and social spheres, and women are not represented in government or the business sector. She said if women are allowed to be active outside the home, they are mostly restricted to educational and health activities.
While she is frustrated about these restrictive Saudi policies toward women, Al-Hani said she maintains hope, as changes take place within the society and government through new initiatives and movements.
Rana Husseini, a human rights activist, author, and journalist, detailed the changes to the status of women in Jordan over the past 20 years. Husseini, whose human rights activities over the past two decades in Jordan have focused on honor crimes and other women’s issues, said Jordan has made substantial progress on women’s rights as a result of intense media and civil society activism. While there is room for improvement, she said women are now participating in government and significant reforms have been made to the judicial system.
Though the effectiveness of quotas for women in government may be debated, Husseini noted that quotas facilitate women’s participation in elections and government service. In fact, she said, there are some 50 women judges in Jordan. She noted that honor killings, except in extreme cases, are becoming rarer, and harsher sentences are being imposed for honor crimes.
With constant pressure on the government and society, reforms will continue, said Husseini, who is optimistic about the future for women rights in Jordan and in the Middle East as a whole.
Demographic Realities
Why do many Middle Eastern women not enjoy the same economic opportunities as women of other regions? Can they be empowered to participate at a greater level? Nadereh Chamlou, a senior adviser at the World Bank, attributed the gender inequality to restrictive social norms. She said the region’s women must be empowered to participate in a more significant way if their countries are to effectively exploit, instead of squander, the current economic “window of opportunity.”
At a September 13 discussion, Chamlou said the good demographic news is that there are high numbers of working-age people and thus the potential for rapid economic growth. However, Middle Eastern countries have the highest dependency rates in the world, a fact that Chamlou attributed to the low economic participation of Middle Eastern women relative to female citizens’ participation in other parts of the world. This reality means the Middle East’s demographic composition will not be exploited to its full potential.
Increasing economic opportunities for women will require changing social norms, said Chamlou. She cited a study conducted by the World Bank in three Middle Eastern capitals – Amman, Jordan; Cairo, Egypt; and Sana’a, Yemen – that revealed the biggest reason for the poor representation of women in the workforce is the negative male attitude regarding women working outside the home. Notably, social norms and such negative male attitudes proved to restrict women’s participation far more than the need to attend to child-rearing duties. Despite the successful efforts of most Middle Eastern states to improve education opportunities, conservative social norms still pose a barrier to female empowerment.
Some simple changes could have a substantial impact. Chamlou recommended focusing on educated, middle-class women, undertaking more efforts to bring married women into the workforce, and emphasizing changing attitudes – particularly among conservative younger men – toward women working outside the home.
Lessons from Tunisia
In Tunisia, the progress of women’s empowerment can serve as a model for the region, noted women’s rights advocate Nabiha Gueddana, president and director-general of the National Agency for Family and Population in Tunisia.
Speaking at a September 8 meeting, Gueddana said the Arab world can learn much from her native Tunisia regarding the positive effects of empowering women. Gueddana, also a candidate for undersecretary-general of UN Women at the United Nations, described how Tunisian women have been empowered politically, economically, and socially, and how this empowerment has benefited Tunisian society.
Tunisia has undergone substantial changes since achieving independence from France in 1956. Tunisian women had second-class status in the years prior, a time Gueddana described as one that relegated them to a life of constant child-rearing, illiteracy, and economic dependence.
Yet Tunisia has become a beacon for other Muslim societies: the country’s labor code allows full female participation in the economy and education is open equally to boys and girls. Family planning programs and important strides in health have considerably lowered the birth rate and lengthened the life expectancy of the average woman. Gueddana also noted that Tunisia’s economic growth is now five times greater than the growth rate of its population.
Measures to empower women in Tunisia have benefited not only women but Tunisian society as a whole, with significant shifts in men’s attitudes regarding women’s rights and roles in society. Gueddana indicated that her efforts extend beyond Tunisia, as she strives to help empower women throughout the world. She said such efforts will persist so long as women anywhere find themselves disadvantaged, dependent, and living as second-class citizens.
Women’s empowerment in society rests increasingly not in the political but in the economic and business domains (Editor’s note: one could add that women’s empowerment has the potential to considerably impact the environmental domain as well). While women have made considerable progress in the political arena, economic power is still male-dominated throughout the region.
Gueddana said the discussion of women’s rights should take place within the broader context of human rights. Violence against women, particularly sexual violence, is a widespread phenomenon across all societies and, unfortunately, often considered taboo for discussion. She said all citizens benefit when all have equal rights and can use them to expand their opportunities and achievements to enhance their societies.
Dana Steinberg is the editor of the Wilson Center’s Centerpoint.
Photo courtesy of Centerpoint.
A Publication of the Stimson Center.
