Call to Action Women’s potential must be recognized and realized

On World Poverty Day, we join the Stand Up Campaign to call on world leaders to empower the women that power the global economy — we can’t afford not to. Societies where women are more equal stand a greater chance of eliminating poverty, starting with reducing it by half by 2015. At this critical juncture between the promise and its realization, poverty remains a complex puzzle. We will neither solve it, nor see the big picture, until all essential pieces are in place.

World leaders must:

• Educate girls and increase women’s “economic literacy” and political participation;
• Reform discriminatory ownership and inheritance laws to help women embark on asset-building;
• Remember that there is no such thing as a “gender-neutral budget” — the impact of every fiscal policy, be it relating to taxation, or resource allocation, must be assessed in terms of its impact on the lives of both men and women;
• Improve child-care options and flexibility for working mothers;
• Eliminate the gender gap in wages;
• Include unpaid household work in national income accounts and mandate maternity and paternity leave benefits;
• Give women the “credit” they deserve: facilitate women’s access to credit and finance, coupled with training, as well as involving them in the development of macro-economic policy to ensure it is gender-sensitive;
• Support women’s funds to support the women for whom every day is poverty day.