From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgTue Sep 12 08:18:40 1995 Date: Sat, 09 Sep 1995 08:24:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing95-l@netcom.com, beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WORKS [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 : wfs@igc.apc.org ## date : 06.09.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright, WOMEN'S FEATURE SERVICE, All Rights Reserved Used here with permission. This story may not be reproduced, e- mailed, or posted anywhere outside the APC without specific permission from WFS. E-mail to wfs-info@igc.apc.org for subscription information. ========================================================================= WOMEN'S CONFERENCE: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WORKS, SAYS UGANDA'S VP By Colleen Lowe Morna Beijing, China, Sept. 5 (WFS) -- Africa's highest ranking woman politician yesterday argued for affirmative action in politics as key to advancing gender equality, citing herself as a prime example. "I'm a product of affirmative action and I'm a very capable woman -- there's no dispute about that," Uganda's Vice-President, Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe, declared during in a keynote address at the official opening Monday of the Fourth World Conference on Women. In addition to Kazibwe and Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, Iceland's President Vigis Finnbogadottir and Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khadela Zia also addressed the ceremony. Currently in Uganda, 30 percent of all its seats in local government councils are reserved for women, Kazibwe told the audience. Women also fill nearly one-fifth of the seats in the country's Constitutional Assembly, now in the process of finalizing a new constitution expected to have far reaching implications for women, she said. Since a woman was appointed minister of agriculture, 50 percent of all places at agricultural colleges in Uganda have been reserved for women. "Money at an international and regional level must become money in women's purses and handbags," Kazibwe told the assembled delegates. "Money is power." "Only when women are in power can we stop begging," the Ugandan Vice President declared to loud applause. An NGO representative watching the proceedings on closed circuit TV in a packed coffee shop commented enthusiastically, "I'd vote for her!" Kazibwe said that if women had more global political power, they would not have to campaign for U.N. Secretary General Boutros- Boutros Ghali to be replaced by a woman. "We would just do it ourselves." In speech read on his behalf, Ghali, who was unable to attend the opening due to a sudden illness, noted that he had appointed five women to executive positions in U.N. programs since he became Secretary-General four years ago. There are several dozen such programs. Women activists are critical of the U.N. for not elevating the women's conference to the status of a summit, as it did in the case of the Earth Summit in Rio, Children's Summit in New York, and Social Summit in Copenhagen. A U.N. Summit is intended for the heads of state rather than their representatives. "Bottom line: it's women," said a U.N. official. Five heads of state are expected to voluntarily attend the conference. Of the 185 states in the United Nations, 27 have women as their heads or deputy heads. Seven of them are in Asia. (Ends426 words)