UK carries the torch for gender equality
18 July 2008
 The UK Government is now quite literally carrying the torch for gender equality
and women's empowerment.
At a ceremony in Amsterdam last Friday (11 July), DFID's Permanent Secretary Dr Nemat Shafik was presented with a torch
symbolising one of the major aims of development: to give women around the world
the same opportunities as men.
The Torch Campaign is a Danish initiative to promote the importance of gender
equality in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Gender equality
is the third of the eight MDGs - the targets that must be met by 2015 to meet
the needs of the world's poorest people.
The Danish Government's campaign is
part of the Call to Action, an international drive to accelerate progress on the
Goals during 2008. Read more about the
Call to Action.
Pledging new support
Upon receiving the torch from Danish Development Minister Ulla Tornaes, Dr
Shafik announced that the UK Government will provide new support totalling
£46.3 million to gender equality and women’s empowerment programmes in Ghana and
Yemen.
Dr Shafik said:
"Gender equality and women’s empowerment is vital to delivering the Millennium
Development Goals as it cuts across them all. Clearly mainstreaming is the
answer, but we need to ensure that gender issues get consistent priority for
such a strategy to work."
"We know that, overall, the international community is failing women and
girls in the poorest parts of the world. In this year of action on the MDGs we
must accelerate efforts to improve the lives of females women who often suffer
the most from poverty. In that spirit, I'm pleased to accept the Danish
Government's MDG3 torch."
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Gender champions
 In Ghana, DFID will spend up to £3 million on a scheme that will benefit
164,000 chronically poor households. These households will receive cash in
exchange for agreeing to a range of commitments, including registering
children's births, ensuring children attend school and enrolling family members
on the National Health Insurance Scheme. In Yemen, DFID will provide over £40
million for the Social Fund for Development (SFD).
The UK’s pledge sits alongside 99 others collected from governments, multilateral
organisations and civil society by the Danes. All the
pledges will be presented to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on
September 25, where he will take up the torch to become the campaign's 100th
gender champion.
A number of high profile people have already become torch champions. These
include development ministers from Germany, Sweden and Norway, World Bank
President Robert Zoellick, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and children and
women's rights campaigner Graca Machel.
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