NEWS from Gender Action
For Immediate Release: May 25, 2011
Contact: Elaine Zuckerman, President
202-939-5463
elainez@genderaction.org
G8 Must Include Women in Development
Gender Action calls on G8 to heed call last week to include women
Washington, DC - As leaders of the G-8 arrive in France for this month's G-8 summit, Gender Action reiterates last week's call made by parliamentarians from 35 countries to focus on women and girls in development.
"Women and girls comprise half of the world's population, but the vast majority of the world's poor" said Elaine Zuckerman, President of Gender Action. "Feminization of poverty can be reversed, if governments and development institutions channel the majority of donor spending to women and girls and address gender from a human rights perspective."
Gender Action works to hold the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) accountable for the disconnect between their excellent gender rhetoric and the unmet needs of women in most of their investments. "IFI investments largely ignore gender gaps and fail to include women in their programs, some of which harm the women they are supposed to be benefitting," Zuckerman said. "Development aid needs to benefit the entire population, and address women's rights as human rights."
G-8 members are the most powerful of IFI agenda shapers. Zuckerman emphasized that she hopes that the U.S. especially, as the largest funder of the IFI's, joins other countries in heeding the call to focus on the role of women and girls in development. "As the largest funder of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. needs to ensure that its money is benefitting both women and men."
About Gender Action
Gender Action is the world's only organization dedicated exclusively to promoting gender justice in all International Financial Institution investments, such as those of the IMF, the World Bank and others.
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