Reem Leila attends the first ladies' Non-Aligned Movement summit in Sharm El-Sheikh The two-day summit of first ladies from the Non- Aligned Movement (NAM) which ended on 16 July focussed on the role of women in helping solve economic, food, health and humanitarian issues. The summit, which was attended by more than 15 first ladies, was held on the sideline of the 15th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement. Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, as chair of the first ladies NAM summit, announced a link on the Egyptian NAM presidency website allowing participants at the event to identify best practices and network over NAM objectives. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 22 million women are likely to lose their jobs by the end of this year as a direct consequence of the global financial crisis. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) puts the number of people suffering from hunger as one billion worldwide. "This is a very dangerous situation," said Mrs Mubarak. She went on to tell the summit that women, especially those in developing countries, were disproportionately affected by the interconnected global challenges. Many women are being pushed beneath the poverty line and fight a daily battle to survive. "Young girls are dropping out of schools to help their families make ends meet. These girls, in turn, become more vulnerable to forced labour, abuse, human trafficking and disease," said Mrs Mubarak. According to World Health Organisation estimates, 99 per cent of maternal mortality rates and 85 per cent of the burden of chronic diseases is concentrated in developing countries, most of them members of the NAM. The strain caused by the financial meltdown on the provision of healthcare services not only affects women's health and increases maternal mortality rates but exacerbates women's care-giving duties. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan believes the empowerment of women is an effective way "to combat poverty, hunger, disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable". Women have a unique resilience during disasters, and great power to spearhead household and community recovery. In the context of swine flu, says Chan, developing countries increasingly need resilient women as the pandemic progresses. "Because the virus is new, it is highly unlikely that anyone in the world will have protective immunity. This creates an almost universal susceptibility to infection," said Chan. The overwhelming majority of patients experience mild illness, followed by full recovery within a week, often without any form of medical treatment. "But there are exceptions and these exceptions must be the focus of our concern, in public health, and as women," Chan argued. Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), pointed out that studies in medical journals had concluded that if mothers in developing countries were to wash their hands before handling infants there would be a 60 per cent lower risk of neonatal death. "Most mothers in the developing world do not know this," said Touré. He argued that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can play a major role in changing the situation. He cited the ITU's "Connect a School, Connect a Community" initiative, a public- private partnership promoting broadband school connectivity to serve both students and the communities in which they live. Connected schools have tremendous potential to serve as community ICT centres which can provide access to services for people in isolated, rural and marginal urban areas, with a particular focus on groups such as women and girls. At connected schools, ICT-based training can be provided to teach women basic literacy, ICT literacy and ICT-enabled career training. Connected schools can also be used for essential e-health dissemination, said Touré. The Iqraa (read) initiative championed by Lebanese MP Ghinwa Jalloul uses computer-based literacy training to help people -- mostly women -- learn to read and write Arabic in 35 hours. "This compares to the nine to 12 months which would normally be required," said Touré. "The proliferation of help-lines can really help reduce people trafficking and sexual slavery, and end-user-sharing has a positive effect on empowering women in poor and rural communities." Touré estimates that up to two million women and young girls are victims of human trafficking every year. While the global economic and financial crisis continues to affect the poor in developing countries, it has serious gender-specific consequences on vital matters such as health, nutrition, education, as well as the potential to increase societal and domestic violence. The National Council for Women (NCW) has developed a strategy that aims to meet these challenges by addressing aspects of the current crises that are detrimental for women. Farkhonda Hassan, secretary-general of the NCW, stressed that women should be looked at not just as passive victims affected by such crises but as potential economic actors. The council, says Hassan, is striving to introduce new and non-traditional indicators to accurately measure degrees of gender equality. "We are using them at present on an experimental basis for gender-auditing and evaluation of national plans and programmes on an annual basis." The establishment of Equal Opportunities Units in almost all ministries is based upon recommendations by, and with the support of, the NCW, she added. Women's NGOs in Malaysia have played a formidable role in nation building and national development, said the wife of Malaysian Prime Minister Datin Paduka Seri Mansor. They not only complement government efforts but also ensure that critical issues affecting women are kept within the radar of government. "Women NGOs play a very active advocacy role in issues such as managing domestic crises and violence against women. They were responsible for initiating the formulation of the Domestic Violence Act, one of the most important laws on managing family crisis," said Mansor. Mrs Mubarak concluded the conference by highlighting some of the useful ideas, practices and lessons learned and stressing that women should be directly involved and represented in all areas and at all stages of public life, including the formulation of the social agendas of their societies. "Broad initiatives are needed to promote women in corporate leadership roles and strategic philanthropy. In addition, developed countries must honour their official development assistance commitments in order to enable developing countries to overcome the challenges posed by the global financial crisis," said Mrs Mubarak.
