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International Women's Day 2008
7 March 2008
Image courtesy of
Sven Torfinn/Panos Pictures
Saturday 8 March is
International
Women’s Day – a celebration of the progress that women have achieved around
the world, and a moment of hope for the future.
And yet today we live in a world where 10 million more girls than boys are
denied the chance to a primary education, where a woman dies in pregnancy or
childbirth every minute, and where there are countries in which girls are 50%
more likely to die before their fifth birthday than boys.
Working globally to end discrimination and poverty
Speaking earlier this week at an International Women’s Day
panel organised by the
Gender
and Development Network, International Development Secretary Douglas
Alexander spoke of his belief in our moral duty to help women break free from
discrimination and lift themselves out of poverty.
Reiterating the need for the international community to work together to meet
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the
Secretary of State
announced new funding of £5 million that will make small loans available to
women in Afghanistan. This
will help them to earn their way out of poverty. Already 280,000 women have been
provided with loans through the scheme, and by the end of next year 400,000
should have benefited.
A need for greater progress
Speaking on the panel alongside Kenyan Nobel Prize winner
Wangari Maathai, Douglas Alexander said:
"The international community needs to make better and faster progress on gender
equality and women's rights. Without it, we will not achieve the global goal of
halving poverty by 2015 and we will struggle to meet any of the MDGs.
"We have not seen the progress that we hoped for in the area of gender equality
and women’s empowerment. Women make up a majority of the world’s poor, and
gender discrimination is a major factor in their continuing poverty. The UK will
continue to work to improve the lives of women in developing countries, and we
want to see others doing the same."
At the event, Prime Minister Gordon Brown also delivered a video message in
support of International Women's Day and women's rights around the world - watch
the video on the
ActionAid
website.
Action on inequality
Find out more about what DFID is doing to promote equal rights for women and girls, and to improve their health and education:
- How we fight poverty: Women's rights
- How we fight poverty: Mothers
And read our case studies to see how we've made a difference to real lives in some of the world's poorest countries:
- Case study: Changing women's lives in rural Kosovo
- Case study: Back to school for Malawi's teenage mothers
- Case study: Bangladeshi TV takes aim at violence against women
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