| Female focused development in the Third World is proving more cost-effective. In Asia, micro-loans have opened the way for a sweeping challenge to the patriarchal social order. |
From Dien Bien Phu, the
town in a misty twelve mile gorge made famous by the final defeat of the
French army in 1954, theVietnamese have launched a new war in dozens of
villages. In this conflict, however, the combatants are primarily women.
The tactic is a new frontier in supplying food called aquaculture, or
fish farming. Not only is it helping tens of thousands of people worldwide
win the battle against constant hunger and disease, it is also providing
new stature to women in traditionally male dominated societies.
Aquaculture is turning an age old pastime into an occupation, thanks
to new fish breeds and oral training that circumvents illiteracy or, in
the case of Hoang Thi Ma, a member of the Hmong minority, the absence of
a formal written language altogether. In one of the most densely populated
nations, where 80% of the 75 million population is rural and half lives
in poverty, aquaculture also overcomes the shortage of farmland.
Vietnam’s project, launched by the UN Development Program in 1994, is not
unique. Long bypassed in the development process, women are a centerpiece
of a decade long UN campaign, now in its first year, to eradicate poverty
world wide. Innovative UN programs include traveling classes for nomadic
women in Mongolia's Gobi desert and political rights seminars for India‘s
untouchable women.
These projects, and others by groups including the US Agency for International
Development and Save the Children, recognize a global reality that poverty
is sexist. About 70% of the world's poor are females, according to international
aid experts. The number of rural women in povertygrew between the 1970s
and 1990s to an awesome 565 million, reports the International Fund
for Agricultural Development.
A major reason, ironically, is the shift to capitalism in many countries
that until recently had centrally planned economies. "The negative
impact of economic reform and transition to market economies has tended
to hit women harder than men", reported a 1996 study by the International
Labor Organization. The newly free-market economies, for example, have
typically concentrated their limited job training resources on men, the
ILO said.
But female-focused development is proving to be more than a response
to a new trend. It is providing a more lasting and cost effective solution
to poverty generally. "Research has repeatedly found that women
are more likely than men to use new earnings to solve other problems faced
by poor families," said AID Administrator J. Brian Atwood. "So
for development to be effective today, programs must pay attention to the
central role of women in the economic and social advancement of a nation."