home > by publication type > op-eds > The Pay-off from Women's Rights
Email
| Author: | Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy |
|---|
March 8, 2005
Princeton University
Long decried as too controversial for foreign policy, the promotion of women's rights is now acknowledged as critical to economic development and good governance, especially in developing countries. Significant research over the past decade has shown that focusing on women is often the best way to reduce birth rates and child mortality; improve health, nutrition and education; stem the spread of HIV/AIDS; build robust and self-sustaining community organizations and encourage grassroots democracy.
The Asian Development Bank has been promoting gender-sensitive judicial and police reforms in Pakistan, for example, and the World Bank is training female political candidates in Morocco. The United States, too, is increasingly embracing women's rights, as a way not only to foster democracy, but also to promote development, curb extremism and fight terrorism, all core objectives of its foreign policy.
Such efforts have paid off in many countries. Gender gaps in infant mortality rates, calorie consumption, school enrollment, literacy levels, access to health care and political participation have narrowed steadily. And they have benefited society at large, by improving living standards, increasing social entrepreneurship and attracting foreign direct investment.
Yet significant gender disparities continue to exist in some areas of southern Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, where empowering women is still considered a subversive proposition. In some societies, women's rights are at the front line of a protracted battle between proponents of conservative, patriarchal practices -- often reinforced by religious values -- and those with more moderate, progressive views. Deep tensions are evident in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, and to a lesser extent in Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia. Resolving them will be critical to progress in these countries, for those that suppress women are likely to stagnate economically, fail to develop democratic institutions and become more prone to extremism.
The Bush administration appreciates these dangers, but it has tackled them inconsistently. Washington has supported women's empowerment in reform-oriented countries such as Morocco, but it has not promoted it in countries less amenable to change such as Saudi Arabia. And although it has linked calls for democracy with increased rights for women, especially in the Middle East, and promoted gender equality in its reconstruction plans for Afghanistan and Iraq, it has done too little to enforce them.
The United States must be more aggressive. In particular, it must undertake more programs designed to increase women's educational opportunities, their control over resources and their economic and political participation. It must ratify the 1981 Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women, which 175 countries, including every other industrialized democracy, have ratified. It must earmark more funds, especially from the Middle East Partnership Initiative and the Millennium Challenge Account, for development programs specifically designed to decrease gender gaps. And it should consider making adherence to women's rights a condition for granting military and economic aid to developing countries.
Promoting gender equality will remain a complicated and delicate task, particularly in Muslim societies. But it may be less so than before, now that overwhelming data shows that women are critical to economic development. "The worldwide advancement of women's issues is not only in keeping with the deeply held values of the American people," former Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "It is strongly in our national interest as well." The United States has long advocated women's rights as a moral imperative or as a way to promote democracy. In so doing, it might have compounded the difficulty of its task, by irking conservative religious forces or the authoritarian regimes it otherwise supports. But now Washington can also make an economic case for empowering women, which may be more acceptable to traditionalists. Promoting women's rights because they spur development and economic growth is a powerful way for the United States to advance its foreign policy in the future while minimizing the ideological debates that have frustrated it in the past.
Isobel Coleman '87 is a Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and also the director of its Women and Foreign Policy program. Today is International Women's Day.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.