WASHINGTON DC, 3 March 2010: Women are key to rebuilding Afghanistan and Haiti and putting both nations on the path to secure and sustainable development, according to two prominent women leaders from those nations.
Suraya Pakzad, Director of Voice of Women in Herat, Afghanistan, who was named by TIME magazine as one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People in 2009, and Kathy Mangones, Haiti country programme director for UNIFEM, the UN women’s fund, will issue a call on Capitol Hill for policymakers to put women front and centre in two of the most high-profile US and international assistance efforts underway in the developing world.
They will be joined by Maria Otero, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs at the US State Department, and Congressional leaders including Senator Mary Landrieu at the second Annual International Women’s Day Breakfast on Capitol Hill entitled Lessons from the Frontlines: Afghanistan, Haiti and the Path to a More Secure World.
– Whether in Afghanistan and Haiti or elsewhere in the world, women are the best investment to build stronger families and communities and more stable economies,” said Ritu Sharma, Co-Founder and President of Women Thrive Worldwide, and added: – They are still the majority of the world’s poor. As the US reforms its foreign assistance programmes, it is crucial that gender be a central pillar of our revamped foreign policy and assistance efforts.
– This is a historic time. It is the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action. We cannot continue to exclude one-half the population and still meet the challenge to build a more secure world, said Inés Alberdi, Executive Director, UNIFEM, and continued: – We will not have security without human security and we will not have human security without sufficient — even equal — numbers of women at each and every decision-making table.
