From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgFri Sep 8 09:18:15 1995 Date: Thu, 07 Sep 1995 10:35:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org, beijing95-l@netcom.com Subject: WCW: Federico Mayor at Beijing [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## Original in: /HRNET/WOMEN ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 05.09.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Federico Mayor at Beijing By Vivek Menezes Earth Times News Service BEIJING--"Woman, with no other master but yourself, live from now on, equal and free." These words are part of a poem called "Woman" by Federico Mayor, the Director General of UNESCO, who is also an accomplished and widely published poet. Mayor is in Beijing to stress the importance given by his organization to women's education and empowerment, one of the four main areas of work for UNESCO along with Africa, Least developed countries and youth. Mayor told The Earth Times that his goals for the conference could easily be divided into two interlinked concepts: empowerment of women and women in power. UNESCO proposes to cure many of the problems faced by women by making sure that governments provide an increase of funds for education and development of jobs while at the same time making sure that women have an increased access to the corridors of political power. Women currently constitute only 6 percent of the worldwide governmental hierarchy, Mayor said, and UNESCO would like to see that level rise to 30 percent by the year 2000, and eventually to parity. At the same time, UNESCO would like all governments to commit themselves to increasing their funds for education to 6 percent of GNP, earmarking at least 50 percent of that for women. This is needed, Mayor said, because currently there is a tremendous gender-disparity in access to education, with over two-thirds of illiterates worldwide being female. UNESCO has a program called "Learning without Frontiers" which aims to combat this situation, said Mayor, because more than 600,000 villages worldwide lack access to electricity and many of the educational opportunities widely available to others. It is for this reason that UNESCO's newly stated goal is "lifelong education for all," giving an opportunity for education for those excluded from a classroom. Mayor has brought a Statement on Women's Contribution to a Culture of Peace with him to Beijing and intends on getting all the women presidents, prime ministers, Nobel Prize-winners, and other decision-makers to sign it. The statement , which calls for a "dynamic movement towards a culture of peace derives inspiration and hope from women's visions and actions.