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.