Posted Date: July 20, 2001
Proposed Bill Urges Investments in Women and Girls Abroad
Proposed Bill Urges Investments in Women and Girls Abroad
As governments, citizens, and non-governmental organizations meet in June to assess the government progress of the Platform for Action, drafted during the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, a coalition of NGOs are addressing some of the concerns raised in this conference through US legislation.
Women’s EDGE, a Washington, D.C.-based member coalition, has collaborated and drafted a bill that hopes to strengthen US investments in women and girls in developing countries. Several InterAction members, ICRW, Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Academy for Education Development (AED), World Learning, and RESULTS have been involved in writing sections of the bill.
The GAINS for Women and Girls Act of 2000 (Global Action and Investments for New Success for Women and Girls) authorizes appropriations for and addresses virtually all sectors that impact women, including basic education, microenterprise, family health, maternal health, HIV/AIDS, protecting the health of children, tuberculosis, women’s rights, and international trade. The GAINS Act of 2000 specifically addresses gender issues in the context of US foreign policy and the US foreign operations budget.
The GAINS bill is expected to be soon introduced by Reps. Connie Morella (R-MD), Nita Lowey (D-NY), John Porter (R-IL) and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) in the House and by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) in the Senate.
According to the bill, women in many parts of the world are denied access to the education, knowledge, and information that is becoming increasingly important in a knowledge-intensive global economy. Investing in women’s skills and knowledge is critical to improving the status of women, increasing their productivity and wages, enhancing their quality of life and increasing their participation in decision-making at the household, community and national levels. According to the GAINS Act, "no one sectoral intervention is sufficient to create the environment in which women and girls can thrive economically and socially." Investments are necessary in multiple areas including education and training, and access to basic health services and care, credit and employment, and to family planning and reproductive health services.
At the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, the United States agreed to take adequate steps to implement its commitments to "Review, adopt and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty" or "integrate gender concerns and perspectives in policies and programs for sustainable development". The GAINS bill tries to ensure the implementation of these commitments.
The GAINS bill not only addresses US investments in select foreign assistance accounts, it also tries to make US agencies more accountable to women’s needs. The bill instructs relevant agencies to conduct a Social and Gender Review on the impacts of international trade liberalization on women in the United States and in developing countries where the US has an active development program. It also requires the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to study non-renumerated work in selected developing countries and requests USAID to study the impacts of privatization programs on women in developing countries undergoing this structural change
The bill also addresses the Ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) by including a Sense of the Senate and House on this treaty.
The GAINS Act calls for the appropriation of approximately $2 billion. "Two billion dollars may seem like a large amount of money, however, only a small amount is in new requests," said Ritu Sharma, Executive Director of Women’s EDGE. "And besides, according to drafters of the bill, $2 billion is about how much the US currently invests in one new attack submarine."
For more information on the GAINS Act of 2000, please contact Ritu Sharma, Executive Director of Women’s EDGE at 202-884-8396 or edge@womensedge.org.
The GAINS Act calls for authorization to appropriate:
$200 million for basic education
$167 million for international microcredit programs
$541.6 million for US international family planning programs (current:
$35 million for international maternal health programs
$525 million for children’s health
$100 million for tuberculosis prevention and treatment
$7 million for microbicides research
$275 million for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment
$100 million for anti-trafficking programs
TOTAL: approx. $2 bil.rs.
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