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October 1996 Volume 6, No. 10
IN THIS ISSUE
GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT
Women at the Margin
LITERATURE REVIEWS
Exported Medicines
Space Activity and The Environment
Ukraine's Triple Transition
ORGANIZATIONS
Action in International Medicine
VITA PROJECTS
36 Years of Technology Transfer on One CD-ROM
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Enterprise Forum
Earthquake Engineering
* * *
DevelopNet News is published monthly by Volunteers in Technical
Assistance (VITA) in Arlington, Virginia, USA. For additional
information, please see the end of this newsletter.
* * *
G e n d e r a n d D e v e l o p m e n t
WOMEN AT THE MARGIN
Women are critical links in the economy of the developing world. This is
especially true in the production, transportation, processing and mar-
keting of food; in parts of Chad in Africa, for example, they produce
80% of the food supply. Despite the importance of their contribution,
they get little help in accessing the benefits of Chadian society.
According to James Gustave Speth (UN Development Programme) this situa-
tion also is widespread in other countries. He observes, "Women are con-
sidered unequal to men by legal systems in developing countries, they
constitute 70% of the world's poor and two-thirds of its illiterates.
They occupy only 14% of managerial and administrative jobs, 10% of par-
liamentary seats and 6% of cabinet positions. They often work longer
hours than men, but much of their work remains unvalued, unrecognized,
and unappreciated."
Evidence is growing that discrimination against women is a principal
cause of increasing poverty in the developing world. The harmful effects
of gender discrimination are reinforced by conventional strategies of
economic development. Jodi Jacobson (The Worldwatch Institute, Washing-
ton, D.C.) has conducted a major study of gender bias in many developing
nations. The study says, "Gender bias in subsistence economies (which
includes 3,000 million of the world's 5,500 million people) ranges from
wage discrimination to exclusion from development programs, to legal
barriers to owning land, to systemic violence against women. This dis-
crimination exacerbates poverty by preventing hundreds of millions of
women from obtaining the credit, education, training, health services,
child care, and legal status needed to improve their prospects."
What is the eventual impact of gender bias? All indications are that it
affects far more than the lives of the women that are subject to it. In
fact, according to Jacobson, gender bias results not only in families
remaining poor "but the economies of many Third World nations lag far
below their economic potential." Jacobson and others claim it is easy to
see why: "If women in subsistence economies are the major suppliers of
food, fuel, and water for their families, and yet their access to pro-
ductive resources is declining, then more people will suffer from hun-
ger, malnutrition, illness, and loss of productivity." According to the
Worldwatch study, investing in women is the fastest way to simultane-
ously increase food security, reduce population growth and relieve
pressure on the environment.
Toward Equality
How can equality of opportunity be brought about? The Fourth World
Women's Conference held in Beijing in 1995 addressed this question.
Gertrude Mongella, the Secretary General of the conference, reported,
"the challenge is essentially one of finding practical levers to bring
about change." She said the agent of change must be "a powerful set of
practical, affordable, and mutually reinforcing changes in education,
family planning, health, and women's technologies that could do the most
to bring about the beginnings of a transformation."
Education, the first of these dynamic agents of change, is perhaps the
most significant and powerful, for it holds the promise of molding the
beliefs of generations to come and making their gender biases less dis-
criminatory. "An educated woman . . . is more likely to share in family
decisions about how many children to have, how to bring them up, how to
spend money, how to organize domestic life, and how to care for her own
and her family's health" says Mongella. "All of this inevitably, if
slowly, raises the woman's status . . . "
Similarly, the spread of family planning services has the capacity to
change women's lives. The number of children a woman has fundamentally
affects not only the chances of her children growing up healthy and
educated, but also her health, her time and energies, and her freedom
and opportunities.
Access to better health services is directly connected to the spread of
family planning services and the effect on improving women's lives. For
many women in the developing world the lack of attention to health and
nutrition during childhood and puberty leads to injuries, illnesses, and
disabilities that can be painful and debilitating and which further
undermine their opportunities.
Finally, technology can also have a major impact on women's lives.
Access to the right technology that will lighten their burdens rather
than increasing them can save millions of woman-hours of drudgery every
day, improve women's health, and release their energy for more produc-
tive purposes. Such technologies are not usually expensive. They include
standpipes and handpumps, small ploughs and tools to help with the weed-
ing and harvesting, powered grain-grinding mills, and more efficient
cookstoves.
A Vision for the 21st Century
What should be the goals of gender relations in the coming century?
According to the 1995 UNDP Human Development report we should build a
world order that:
-- Embraces as a fundamental concept full equality of opportunity
between women and men.
-- Eliminates the prevailing disparities between men and women and cre-
ates an enabling environment for the full flowering of the productive
and creative potential of both sexes.
-- Promotes more sharing of work and experience between women and men in
the workplace as well as in the household.
-- Regards women as essential agents of change and development and opens
many more doors to women to participate more equally in economic and
political opportunities.
-- Values the work and contribution of women in all fields on a par with
those of men, solely on merit, without making gender distinctions.
-- Puts both women and men clearly at the center of all development pro-
cesses.
Consider how firmly gender discrimination is established in many coun-
tries. Clearly, its elimination would need strong motivation and deci-
sive action. How can people be so motivated? One only need consider the
grave implications of continued gender bias on the food crisis in Africa
where women, currently the producers of up to 80% of local food crops,
are almost always bypassed by extension, input, and credit programs.
A successful movement to eliminate gender discrimination cannot take the
form of isolated interventions. Rather, it must engage a whole range of
actors -- country governments, international finance institutions,
bilateral donors, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, the
news media, and academic and research institutions -- all of which have
specific roles to play.
Governments must actively promote "people-centered" sustainable develop-
ment by fostering a policy environment that makes basic education, eco-
nomic opportunity, and primary health care available to women and girls.
Nongovernmental organizations and community groups can supplement gov-
ernment services and extend them to women not reached by these services.
Multilateral development organizations and bilateral donors can increase
or maintain funding for structural adjustment and economic recovery pro-
grams that assure fairer opportunities for women and better access to
education, health, credit, and employment. The private sector can pro-
vide women with opportunities to become economically independent.
Finally, the news media can encourage the creation and use of nonstereo-
typed, balanced, and diverse images of women and help mobilize public
opinion to embrace gender equality as a developmental priority.
Source: Vicki Tsiliopoulos <mailto:vickit@vita.org>.
L i t e r a t u r e R e v i e w s
EXPORTED MEDICINES
Bas van der Heide, 1995. "Drug Exports to Developing Countries: Problems
Remain Unsolved." Essential Drugs Monitor, issue 20, pages 6 - 7.
A Dutch study in 1994 looked at 161 medicines exported to developing
countries; a third of them lacked product information. So the research-
ers obtained drug samples from pharmacies in seven developing countries
in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania to see whether the provided
instructions were available in a local language and showed no signifi-
cant differences from instructions provided to Dutch users in the coun-
try of manufacture. There were widespread inconsistencies in listing
side-effects, contraindications, and warnings. Frequently there was no
warning against hazards to pregnant women. Similar findings resulted
from American and French studies.
In the Netherlands there are voluntary guidelines for providing infor-
mation with exported drugs, but the system evidently does not work as
intended. Van der Heide (Wemos, Amsterdam) says there should be more
regulation in both the producing and the consuming countries. In gen-
eral, there is little or no coordination or concerted action among
countries for providing accurate consumer information. Such federal
countries as Germany, for example, often delegate regulation to the
individual states or provinces. In 1989 the European Community decided
not to tighten restrictions on the export of drugs that had been banned,
withdrawn, or severely restricted, or that had never been licensed in
the EC. Indeed, the EC lacks a competent central authority for such
regulation. In Europe, France has the strongest commitment to safe
exports. American export policy, in place since 1986, has worked well
without undue restraint on the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
SPACE ACTIVITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Ze'ev Wolfson and Roma Tsvang, 1995. "The Impact of Missiles and Space
Activity on the Environment in Russia." Environmental Policy Review; the
Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe, volume 9, no 2
(Winter), pages 11 - 21.
"Several publications [in 1994 and 1995] point to heavy pollution of
water, air, and soil; damage to flora and fauna; and deleterious effects
on public health caused by the liquid missile fuels hephthyl and syn-
tine." Thus, the authors (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) begin their
short paper, the first report to analyze the impact the Russian space
and military technology on the environment. Unfortunately, large masses
of data are still classified as secret and civilian ecologists and med-
ical experts are denied direct access to critical sites. Thus, environ-
mental impact analysis is "generally conducted without data from on-site
research."
Vast regions of soil and water around launching and falling sites are
contaminated with materials in concentrations 10 to 20 times the accep-
ted norms. The falling sites include 1.6 million hectares. Moreover, the
planned destruction of rockets in accordance with Soviet-American trea-
ties is expected to liberate "tens of thousands of tons" of toxic mater-
ial. Methods used to dispose of such materials safely, as used in the
United States, are said to be unavailable or unaffordable in Russia.
Progress has been made by Russian specialists in assessing the degree of
impact of space technology upon land owners, in legal regulation of
rocket launchers, and in development of systems for ecological monitor-
ing of launching and falling sites. And it was Russian scientists who
first noted the important effects of rocket contaminants on ions and
ozone in the atmosphere.
Space contamination is another set of issues. Although the U.S space
program has not littered space since the Shuttle Program, about 90% of
present "space junk" is of Russian origin.
UKRAINE'S TRIPLE TRANSITION
Stephen Browne and Christian Pflaumer, 1996. "Aiding the Triple Transi-
tion in Ukraine." International Journal of Technical Cooperation, volume
2, no. 1 (Summer), pages 74 - 87.
When the Soviet Union broke up, many people were optimistic about the
future of Ukraine. Once the granary of Europe, Ukraine was rich in nat-
ural resources, was industrially well developed, and had a strong human
infrastructure. However, the goal of becoming an independent democratic
state based on a market economy implied three complex transitions: to
statehood, to democracy, and to a reformed economy; all of them coinci-
ding in a time of drastic political change. Thus challenged during the
last few years, half the country's production system has ground to a
halt, unemployment in the working population has risen to 40%, and in
1993 inflation reached 10,000%. Male life expectancy has fallen one year
with each passing year.
International assistance began cautiously, but has now assumed tradi-
tional forms. But assisting organizations do encounter serious problems:
the country has been unable to agree on even a draft of a constitution
and includes several important linguistic and cultural minorities. Yet,
in spite of formidable challenges, the country is fairly stable. The
transition to democracy has been slow, but there is progress in several
areas. On the economic side, energy costs have risen dramatically. About
two years ago the government presented a plan for comprehensive economic
reform, which prompted assistance from the World Bank and the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund. The impact of these changes has been severe, espe-
cially upon health and real wages.
The authors (UN Development Programme Office, Kiev) highlight these
critical needs for foreign assistance: humanitarian assistance, techni-
cal cooperation, and financial support for economic transition. The
government has listed its priorities for technical cooperation; in
implementing them planners tend to trust regional offices, private busi-
ness, and nongovernmental organizations rather than the central govern-
ment. Public administration especially needs strengthening. In many
cases, the use of expatriate advisors has not worked well: they often
act as purveyors of Western policies and practices, are ignorant of
local conditions, and fail to allow for the steepness of local learning
curves.
O r g a n i z a t i o n s
ACTION IN INTERNATIONAL MEDICINE
Founded in 1988, AIM strives to improve the quality of life in devel-
oping countries by strengthening their health management systems. The
organization works to improve district health systems and implement
strategies for health management assistance in collaboration with host
governments, local health structures, and indigenous health professional
communities. Finally, AIM endeavors to reorient the services offered by
hospitals in developing countries so that they more closely match com-
munity needs.
Information: Gordon Wolsenholme, c/o Royal Brompton, National Heart &
Lung Hospital, Sydney Street, London SW3 6NP, U.K.; tel. +44 (71) 351-
8964; fax +44 (71) 351-8966.
V I T A P r o j e c t s
36 YEARS OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ON ONE CD-ROM
For more than 36 years, VITA has been involved in the dissemination of
technical information on a wide range of technical subjects from Agri-
culture to Zoonoses. Over that period, VITA Volunteers and staff organ-
ized the information into a wide variety of technical publications and
state-of-the-art papers. This vast collection will soon be available on
CD-ROM and includes VITA reference guides, the popular "Understanding
Technology" series featured on VITA's Voice of America program for over
seven years, and small-to-medium scale "Industry Profiles."
"Most of this information is not available from any other source" notes
VITA's Director of Informatics, Gary Garriott. "More importantly, in
designing the CD-ROM, VITA has put together a product that operates on a
variety of computer platforms including MS-DOS(tm), Microsoft Windows
3.1(tm) and Windows 95(tm) as well as Macintosh(tm). Specific `Quick-
start' instructions for each version are provided. VITA anticipates that
this feature as well as the disk's moderate cost and high speed of
access to text and images will encourage its use in developing coun-
tries, where computers are often much slower than in parts of the world
where CD-ROM is a common format."
More than 150 VITA publications have been gathered into one large docu-
ment searchable and viewable using TextWare(tm) software installed on
the disk. An electronic "cardfile" has been created through optical
scanning and includes both text and illustrations contained in each
publication. Highlighted words and phrases are "linked" to other por-
tions of the text or to figures and photographs scanned from the ori-
ginal publications. Placing the cursor on and selecting one of these
highlighted words will cause the program to display the linked text or
illustration.
The VITA Publications CD-ROM will be available from VITA in November
1996 for $95 plus shipping.
Information: Brij Mathur <mailto:bmathur@vita.org>
A n n o u n c e m e n t s
ENTERPRISE FORUM
As part of its enterprise activities, the International Labour Organiz-
ation will host an Enterprise Forum in Geneva on 8 to 9 November. The
overall theme is promoting social progress and enterprise competitive-
ness in a global economy. The goal of the forum is to gather labor,
employers and governments on the same stage as enterprises and entre-
preneurs to discuss factors affecting enterprises and enterprise cre-
ation today. The forum will focus on four themes: the changing world
economy, the creation of jobs, social initiatives, and the future of
enterprises. Presentations will highlight these issues, discuss them,
explore the real and potential contributions of enterprises and entre-
preneurs, and suggest ILO action, reform, and development.
Information: International Labour Office (Enterprise), CH-1211 Geneva
22, Switzerland; tel. +41 (22) 799-8837; fax +41 (22) 799-7978; e-mail
mailto:<entforum@hq.ilo.ch>; URL <http://www.unicc.org/ilo/english/65entrep
/index.htm>.
EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING
Greece, will hold an international symposium on Earthquake Resistant
Engineering Structures. The symposium will be held in Thessaloniki and
will provide a forum for discussion of basic and applied research in
engineering relevant to the analysis and design of earthquake resistant
structural systems. The symposium aspires to create an atmosphere that
is conducive to fruitful interaction and exchange of ideas as well as
state-of-the-art experimental results among scientists and engineers
from academia and industry.
The topics of the symposium include engineering seismology, seismic
hazard evaluation and the design of earthquake loads, soil-structure
interaction, principles of earthquake resistant design, and the
reinforcement of bridges, historical buildings and monuments, dams,
underground and life-line structures, storage tanks, silos, and other
industrial structures. It is sponsored by the Greek Societies for
Earthquake Engineering and Computational Mechanics.
Information: Sue Owen, ERES 96, Wessex Institute of Technology, Ashurst
Lodge, Ashurst, Southampton SO40 7AA, U.K.; tel. +44 (1703) 293223, fax
+44 (1703) 292853, email <mailto:sue@wessex.witcmi.ac.uk>, URL
<http://www.witcmi.ac.uk>.
* * *
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DevelopNet News is an electronic newsletter published monthly by Volun-
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