What does development do for women?

What does development do for women?

The following article is based on a paper presented by Juwono
Sudarsono, Vice Governor of the National Resilience Institute at
a workshop with the theme of "Gender Equality in Asia and the
Pacific Through the Women's Convention: A Call to Action"
organized by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences in Jakarta on
July 3, 1996.

JAKARTA: As we know only too well, much has been written about
the phenomenal economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region over
the past 20 years and the optimistic predictions of an Asia
Pacific century. Most of the scholarly and popular publicity
about the Asia Pacific miracle has focused on economic and
political issues. Public awareness has grown with media reports
on the APEC/AFTA meetings or the more recent coverage on the
ASEAN Regional Forum on security issues.

Apart from the occasional "eastern" versus "western" values
debate about the appropriate paths to development the issues have
rarely focused on the broader social and cultural preconditions,
dynamics and consequences of Asia Pacific development. Only
occasionally do we hear about the impact of development on women.

As many of us are aware, efforts to promote gender-sensitive
issues are often constrained by international obstacles to reform
and external economic and political forces. International
cooperation in this area has with the global changes in
economics, information technology and politics. The enormity of
the issues makes them seem too difficult to address.

But there are compelling social and cultural reasons why we
cannot afford to let matters rest there. First, however difficult
it may be, we in Asia and the Pacific must continue to seek
solutions to the problem of unemployment in the advanced
industrialized countries as well as in developing nations. We
must qualify our macroeconomic success stories with greater
sensitivity to gender-related issues.

We know only too well that behind the success stories of Asia
and the Pacific, the social and cultural costs borne by women
workers are not been fully appreciated by our governments,
businesses and media. With all the hype about economic growth and
business opportunities, we have tended to ignore the deprivation
and suffering of many working women, particularly those who do
not have the skills needed to survive in a more technologically
driven and competitive international market.

The disparity between and within nations has led to growing
social exclusion, rising inequality and other social and cultural
problems. The current situation represents an enormous waste of
resources and an unacceptable level of human suffering,
particularly among women. It is both economically irrational and
morally unacceptable.

There is another reason why it is important to alleviate the
lot of many of our women workers -- the defeatist sense that full
employment is unachievable. There is a feeling that public
policies have failed to give the required priority to employment
objectives. This has lead to difficulties in drumming up support
for international cooperation towards an objective perceived to
be largely unattainable. This dangerous loss of idealism coupled
with a sense of dejection must be overcome.

There is also the question of calibrating effective action
nationally and internationally. Coordination of macro economic
policies and other instruments of governance would be easier if
countries attached greater importance to full employment.

But if one government worries more about inflation than
employment and another takes the opposite point of view, they
will probably disagree about the costs of acting cooperatively.

For many of us in the developing world, high levels of demand
in the industrialized world, which accounts for nearly 80 percent
of world production, will invariably improve growth prospects
through improved demand for our goods, as well as increased
foreign investment. But if the industrialized world were to
succumb to the lure of protectionism, the prospects for the
material and spiritual betterment of the vast majority of our
workers, particularly of our women, will be severely impaired.

In planning action programs, there must be a greater awareness
of those international issues that have a direct bearing on the
day-to-day lives of the women in our work force. It is especially
pertinent with regard to the globalization of production, of
financial flows, and of marketing which have led to a decline in
national autonomy, giving rise to further misgivings, uncertainty
and insecurity.

Increased liberalization of financial flows, for example, has
led to decreased autonomy in macroeconomic policymaking and has
created difficulties which need to be resolved through
international coordination of public policies as well as reform
of the international monetary system. The increase of speculative
financial flows has made it difficult to stabilize exchange and
interest rates. The final objective should be to lower long-term
interest rates which are vital to determine the levels of
investment and job creation. Leaders in government and business
as well as in academia and research institutes, must grapple with
these problems.

The growth of transnational production has undermined the
effectiveness of traditional instruments of labor policy and
collective bargaining. Competition for foreign investment and the
increasing footlooseness of production has led to the collapse of
labor standards. Again, the overall trend has been to the
detriment of women workers, affecting wages, benefits, health
care and safety standards. At the heart of these concerns are
jobs and income, social recognition and political participation.
These problems generate deep social and political anxieties and
provide a fertile breeding ground for xenophobia and
protectionism.

Since protectionist measures are engendered by the perception
that countries in the Asia Pacific region are obtaining unfair
advantages by violating labor standards, progress in this area is
important to create a more equitable and open economy. For all of
the reasons above, our leaders must address this issue as an
important area of international cooperation and action.

The development of common guidelines as to how these processes
of adjustment must be designed and implemented internationally
would help promote orderly adjustment so that social and cultural
tensions -- particularly those that adversely affect women -- can
be mitigated. A high priority must surely be to bring current
social problems and anxieties to the top of the global agenda.

Last year's World Summit for Social Development was an
important landmark, bringing about greater awareness of these
anxieties. The summit's main issues -- social integration,
productive employment and poverty alleviation -- touched on the
issues affecting women.

We must now press home the connections between economic and
social issues, rather than focusing solely on the details of
social problems or finding palliatives. Without confronting the
economic issues at all levels, the momentum required to bring
about greater political commitment will be missed. The underlying
issue is the creation of higher economic growth, greater social
equity and political participation. Without growth in employment
no amount of tinkering will lead to enduring solutions.

We in Indonesia are deeply concerned about these issues. We
have made a political commitment that the effective role and
bargaining power of our women should be enhanced by greater
understanding of science and technology. This will make them
active participants in development, in partnership with men in
all sectors of our economy, and the family itself.

Only through greater social, economic and political
participation in all parts of the development process can we
strengthen our sense of nationhood, remain resilient and allow
our citizens a greater say in decisions affecting them.