The Draft Platform for Action -
Whither Science and Technology?
With the availability of the advance unedited version of the Draft
Platform for Action in April 1995, the Once and Future Action Network
(OFAN) Secretariat has been inundated with telephone calls - from
members as well as non-members. Many are calls of concern from
persons wanting to know the exact extent of the inclusion of science
and technology amendments. Some are calls of alarm at the
non-inclusion of some of the amendments proposed by OFAN. Others are
calls from persons wanting to assess the success of our lobbying
strategies to date, with a view to continuing advocacy for getting
science and technology on the international agenda for the advancement
of women.
The Draft Platform for Action incorporates the vision of
various interest groups for the transformation of society through the
empowerment of women in policy making and in the implementation of
policies. It reflects the desire to alleviate the persistent and
increasing burden of poverty on women, to create for women equal
access to educational opportunities and health care services, to
eliminate violence against women, to increase the level of women's
participation in peace processes and negotiations, and to increase
women's access to and participation in the definition of economic
structures and policies and the productive process itself, among other
things. This is the document which will be negotiated and finally
adopted by UN member states at the Fourth World Conference on Women.
But, to what extent has the OFAN vision for the advancement of
the world's women through science and technology been incorporated in
the Platform for Action?
While science and technology is not a critical area of concern in the
Draft Platform for Action, it maintains a fairly constant presence in
the document. Science and technology has been included in seven of the
twelve critical areas of concern identified in the document. Of
course, the science and technology component varies from one area to
another, being fairly strong in some, while quite weak in others.
Science and technology is relatively strong in the areas of unequal
access to educational and training opportunities and inequalities in
women's access to and participation in the definition of economic
structures, for example.
Below are extracts from the science and
technology components of the Draft Platform for Action:
Critical Area A:
The persistent and growing burden of poverty on
women
-
The Draft Platform for Action acknowledges that science and technology
can play a critical role in poverty alleviation, if the appropriate
action is taken by governments and development groups to achieve the
strategic objective of enabling women to overcome poverty:
- Particularly in developing countries, the productive capacity of women
should be increased through access to capital, resources, credit,
land, technology, information, technical assistance and training, so
as to raise their income and improve nutrition, education and health
care and status within the household.
- Policies are needed to ensure
basic education, vocational and technical training for girls and women
of all ages and to increase access to education in science and
technology, mathematics, engineering, information technology and high
technology, as well as management training.
Critical Area B:
Unequal access to and inadequate educational opportunities
- Science and Technology is one area to which girls have unequal access
in the education system:
- Science curricula in particular are gender biased. Science textbooks
do not relate to women's and girls' daily experience and fail to give
recognition to women scientists. Girls are often deprived of basic
math and science education and technical training which provide
knowledge they could apply to improve their daily lives and enhance
their employment opportunities. Advanced study in science and
technology prepares women to take an active role in the technological
and industrial development of their countries, thus necessitating a
diverse approach to vocational and technical training. It is essential
that women not only benefit from technology, but also participate in
the process from the design to the application, monitoring and
evaluation stages.
Governments should take appropriate action to achieve a number of
strategic objectives in science and technology education:
- Governments should expand the definition of literacy to include
scientific and technological knowledge.
- Appropriate action should be taken to improve women's access to
vocational training, science and technology and continuing education.
Information should be provided for girls and women on the availability
and benefits of vocational training, training programmes in science
and technology.
- Governments should diversify vocational and technical training and
improve access and retention of girls and women in education and
vocational training such as science, environmental science and
technology, information technology and high technology.
- Governments should encourage the adaptation of curricula and teaching
materials for a more supportive training environment and take positive
measures to promote retraining for the full range of occupational
choices of non-traditional careers. . . including the multidisiplinary
courses for science teachers to sensitize them to the relevance of
science and technology in women's lives.
- Governments should formulate and take positive measures to ensure
better access and participation for women in science.
- To develop non-discriminatory education and training, governments
should take positive measures to increase in proportion access of
women in education policy- and decision-making, particularly by women
teachers, at all levels of education and in academic disciplines,
which are traditionally male-dominated, such as the scientific and
technological fields.
- Steps should be taken to promote education, training and relevant
information programmes for rural and farming women through the use of
affordable and appropriate technologies.
- Development agencies should allocate sufficient resources for
educational reforms and monitor implementation. For example, they
should provide funding for special programmes, such as programmes in
mathematics, science, and computer technology to advance opportunities
for all girls and women.
- Governments should take action to increase relevant training to
increase income-generating activities, women's participation in
decision-making, in particular through women's organizations at
grassroots levels, and their contribution to production, marketing,
and business, and science and technology.
Critical Area C:
Inequalities In Access To Health And Related Services
- Although science and technology can play a critical role in improving
the health services available to women, particularly in the areas of
research and the provision of affordable and appropriate health care,
the references to science and technology in this section are implicit
rather than explicit:
- Action should be taken to increase women's access throughout the life
cycle to appropriate free or affordable and good quality health care
and related information and services.
- Governments should promote gender-sensitive and women-centred health
research, treatment and technology, and link traditional and
indigenous knowledge with modern medicine, making information
available to women to enable them to make informed and responsible
decisions.
- Governments should take action to increase the number of women in
leadership positions in the health professions, including researchers
and scientists, to achieve equality at the earliest possible date.
Critical Area F:
Inequality in women's access to and participation in
the definition of economic structures and policies and the productive
process itself
- Science and Technology is seen as playing a critical role in enhancing
women's economic capabilities:
- Legal and customary barriers to ownership of land, natural resources,
capital, credit, technology and other means of production as well as
wage differentials contribute to impeding the economic progress of
women.
- When they gain access to and control over capital, credit and other
resources, technology and training, women can increase production,
marketing and income for sustainable development.
A number of actions are proposed for governments to take:
- Governments should take positive action to facilitate women's equal
access to resources, employment, markets and trade by creating and
modifying programmes and policies that recognize and strengthen
women's vital role in food security and provide women producers paid
and unpaid, especially those involved in food production, such as
farming, fishing and aquaulture as well as urban enterprises, with
equal access to appropriate technologies, for example.
- They should provide business services and access to markets,
information and technology to low income women.
- They should develop programmes that provide training and retraining
particularly in new technologies and affordable services to women in
business management, product development, financing, production and
quality control, marketing and the legal aspects of business....
- Governments should provide outreach programmes to inform low income
and poor women, particularly in rural and remote areas, of
opportunities for market and technology access and assistance in
taking advantage of these opportunities.
- Governments can help to strengthen women's economic capacity and
commercial networks by recognizing and encouraging the contribution
of research by women scientists and technologists, and by providing
business services, including marketing and trade information, product
design and innovation, technology transfer and quality control to
women's business enterprises....
Governments should help to eliminate occupational segregation and all
forms of employment discrimination in the following ways:
- Encourage women to take up non-traditional jobs, especially in science
and technology.
- Improve the development of, and access to, technologies that
facilitate occupational as well as domestic work, encourage self
support, generate income, transform gender prescribed roles
within the productive process, and enable women to move out of low
paying jobs.
Critical Area J:
Inequality In Women's Access To And Participation In
All Communications Systems, Especially Media
- Women should be empowered by enhancing their skills, knowledge and
access to information technology....they therefore need to be involved
in decision making regarding the development of the new technologies
in order to participate fully in their growth and impact.
- Action should be taken to increase the participation and enhance the
access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the
media and new technologies of communication
- Governments should encourage and recognize women's media networks,
including electronic networks and other new technologies of
communication, as a means for the dissemination of information and
the exchange of views
- Governments should also encourage the use of communication systems,
including new technologies, as a means of strengthening women's
participation in the democratic process.
-
Critical Area K:
Women and the Environment
- Governments are called upon to :
- Facilitate and increase women's access to information and education,
including in the areas of science, technology and economics, thus
enhancing their knowledge, skills and opportunities for participation
in environmental decisions.
- Establish strategies and mechanisms to increase the proportion of
women, particularly at the grassroots levels, involved as
decision-makers, planners, managers, scientists and technical advisers
and as beneficiaries in the design, development and implementation of
policies and programmes for natural resource management and
environmental protection and conservation.
- Ensure the integration of gender concerns and perspectives in policies
and programmes for sustainable development by promoting the education
of girls and women of all ages in science, technology and economics
and other disciplines relating to the natural environment, so they can
make informed choices, and offer informed input in determining local
economic, scientific, and environmental priorities for the management
of and appropriate use of natural and local resources and ecosystems.
- Involve women in the communication industries in raising awareness
regarding environmental issues, especially on the environmental and
health impacts of products, technologies and industry processes.
Critical Area L:
The Girl Child
- This critical area of concern cuts across the others, as the girl
child faces the same barriers to development outlined earlier. There
was one specific reference to science and technology in this section.
- The percentage of girls enrolled in secondary school remains
significantly low in many countries and girls are often not encouraged
or given the opportunity to pursue scientific and technological
training and education, which limits their knowledge required for
their daily lives and their employment
opportunities.
But this should not be considered to be the end of our lobbying for
science and technology in the Platform for Action. We can start
lobbying at national levels so that our different governments will
become aware of, and endorse the above science and technology
inclusions.
In addition, there are a number of science and technology areas that
have not yet been agreed on in the document. These areas now appear in
brackets, and will be negotiated in Beijing in September. They are:
Critical Area C, Section 85 (f):
Governments should take action to provide financial and institutional
support for research on safe, effective, affordable and acceptable
[drugs and] technologies for [reproductive and sexual health] of women
and men, including more safe, effective, affordable and acceptable
methods.
Critical Area E, Strategic Objective E.2.:
[Reduce military expenditures and control the availability of
armaments] [reduce the availability of instruments of violence against
women]
Critical Area E, Section 106 (d)
[immediately adopt/consider the adoption of a moratorium on the export
and planting of antipersonal landmines, and facilitate the transfer of
mine clearance technology without restriction or discrimination]
Critical Area F, Strategic Objective F.1.
[promote women's economic self reliance, including access to
employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic
resources - land, capital and technology]
Critical Area F, Section 114 (b):
[Undertake legislative and administrative reforms to give women equal
rights [equitable rights] with men to economic resources, including
access to ownership and control over land, and other properties,
credit, inheritance, natural resources and appropriate new technology]
Critical Area F, Section 122 (c):
[Use the research of economists, scientists, and technologists to
promote gender equality]
With lobbying, these areas can be incorporated in the Platform for
Action. Locally, we can lobby our national delegates to support these
sections and have them adopted at the Fourth World Conference on
Women, and so add to the science and technology component of the
Platform for Action.
- ONCE AND FUTURE ACTION NETWORK NEWSLETTER - Vol. 1, No.2, May 1995
- Re-envisioning Women, Science and
Technology Towards 1995 and Beyond