Education, Gender Equality and Economic Development The 7 th Asia Economic Forum The Asian Century in the making: Achievement, Challenges and Future Trends.

Education, Gender Equality and Education, Gender Equality and Economic Development Economic Development

The 7th Asia Economic Forum The Asian Century in the making:

Achievement, Challenges and Future Trends

31 July 2011

Ministry of Women’s Affairs

Education-Gender Equality-Economic Development

• “The most important determinant of a country’s competitiveness is its human talent - the skills, education and productivity of its workforce. And women account for one half of the potential talent base throughout the world. Over time, therefore, a nation’s competitiveness depends significantly on whether and how it educates and utilizes its female talent. To maximize its competitiveness and development potential, each country should strive for gender equality - such as to give women the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as men” (World Economic Forum 2007, b: 19f).

3 development stages in which economies develop and prosper:

• First stage, economies are factor driven

• With advancing development, economies are efficiency driven

• When development is quite sustained, economies are innovation driven

Worldwide, countries are ranking according to the Global Competitive Index according to those development stages

• World Economic Forum, 2010 b: 7

Economic theory Three stages in which economies

develop and prosper.

Global Competitive Index

Cambodia : “Factor driven economy”(GCI) Most households in Cambodia still remain dependent on incomes earned from primary agriculture and informal business operations in traditional rural economies.

Where are women in the economy of Cambodia?Women make up:• 51.36% of the population, (Cambodia Census 2008)• 50% of agricultural workers, (NSDP update 2010)• 50% of the industrial work force and (NSDP update 2010)• 37% of all service sector workers. (NSDP update 2010)

However women's labor concentrated at the bottom of the production chain.

They are still in low paid jobs that do not require qualifications provided by education( higher)

Women in Cambodia are seen usually in unpaid subsistence farming and caring works for an extended family

Women contribution

Neary Rattanak : Economic empowerment is one key element for achieving gender equality

For women, opportunities for business or gainful waged employment in the private sector are:

• Industries (garment, tourism. construction..) :depend strongly on foreign investment and are most sensitive to global market forces

• Micro-Small Medium Enterprises so called MSME’s growing contributing to the national economy. They are resilient to global change and strongly rooted to the growing domestic market

Ministry of Women’s Affairs strategy (Neary Rattanak 3 or

Women are Precious gems)

Women Economic Empowerment

• IFC-TAF survey in 2009: 64000 MSMEs listed out of which 45% located in Phnom Penh,55% located in and around all the 23 provincial towns

• Interestingly women own 62% of listed MSMEs but mostly are micro enterprises and informal micro-enterprises

Challenges for Cambodia future: building a strong ad solid local MSMEs sector supporting services and innovative business opportunities in the newly evolving green economy? But where there are opportunities for a new type of entrepreneurship with an emphasis on social and environmental concerns?

Worldwide Women:• 66% of the works,10% of the total income ,1% of the

total properties in the world. • Lowest rate of women participation observed in

executive managerial positionsWorldwide Men:• 34% of the works, 90% of the total income,99% of the

total properties in the world.

* Socio economic status of women according to development levels of countries and structure in Turkey 2010

United Nations Research

Education-Gender Equality-Economic Development

The interrelation between education and human development is obvious

“Education is a powerful equalizer”“Education is productive in an economic sense”

As a result, global strategy to universalize access to quality basic education : “Education for All”

Educating girls is acknowledged as an effective investment to achieve MDGs

• In the context of poverty alleviation, it is likely that educated girls are more likely to resist pressures to marry too young, to have too many children and to resign themselves to unpaid work. They have greater competence as mothers and as active members of their communities. Educated women know more about birth control and family planning.

• This translates to mothers being healthier and having more time for the work and leisure, and her children having more care and resources. Improving girls’ education also means improving mortality rates. Educated mothers in turn, are also more likely to invest in their children’s education and encourage their daughters to persist in their schooling..

Education :powerful equalizer

Education :powerful equalizer

• If the levels of schooling amongst the population are highly correlated with levels of economic and human development, then it should be the responsibility of each and every government to empower women to ascend the ladder of education to the highest rung and don’t just stop at tertiary education.

 Until today great emphasis have been placed on primary and, more recently, secondary education. The issue of higher education has been so far received modest attention as an added means to improve economic growth and mitigate poverty. Even though the entrance requirement for most higher-educational institutions is the completion of basic and secondary education, equity considerations should not only favor a strong emphasis on widespread access to basic education

• The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) highlights the higher education and training as one of 12 pillars to assess a country’s readiness to become and compete as a knowledge economy. A countries transformation and progress towards a knowledge-based economy will and need to be driven by including its women.

• High education is the preparer of leaders. Political accountability to women begins with increasing the number of women in decision-making positions. However, according to UNIFEM, women remain vastly under represented in national or local assemblies, accounting for a worldwide average of some 18.4% of seats in national parliaments which is also a reflection of the rate of women in higher education. 

• Studies show higher numbers of women in decision-making positions, in public or private sector, generally contribute to stronger attention to women issues. It facilitates women’s direct engagement in decision-making and democratic processes and is a mean of ensuring better accountability to women.

High Level education impact

• In Cambodia, education is one of the prioritized sectors of the country, and Cambodia’s national education policy and programmes initially focused on primary education. This political direction was and is a consequence drawn by the country history.

• However today, education needs to be tailored to the particular local context and background of a country past and current situation – and as previously elaborated – to the particular nature of the economy.

Education within Cambodia context

Entrepreneurship/Information and knowledge

ICT and Digital Divide :In the context of Gender Access)

• The term ‘digital divide’ refers to imbalances between developed and developing countries in terms of the inadequacy of telecommunication infrastructures and individual affordability of ICT. It also refers to human resource capacity to engage ICT for development, accessibility to the internet.

• Another divide happens in regard to the gender. The positive changes by ICT have not touched men and women in an equal way. We can actually talk about a gender-based digital divide since many women have no access to these new technologies and are marginalized from fundamental resources and global view of their future.

• Bridging the digital divide is another key objective of the MDGs in the context of eradication of “Extreme Poverty and Hunger”Global initiatives for "Bridging the Digital Divide" aim at bringing the benefits of ICT closer to rural areas and contribute to poverty alleviation, by also considering gender issues.

• Today, most provincial towns in Asia are already connected to the internet even with broad-band, high speed capacity. Therefore, there is 24-hour connectivity, e-mail and widespread mobile telephone services available at locations which are important for business-related communication and information exchange

Bridging the Digital Divide

Cambodia in the context of Digital Divide

Cambodia -nationwide- there are presently, more than 3.5 million mobile phone users, representing approximately 25% of the total population, recently first country in the world where the number of mobile phone users surpassed those, who are connected to fixed lines. In 2009, in China, the number of internet users reached about 253 Million, surpassing the US as the world’s biggest internet market place.  

Still, despite the massive global spread of ICT, still only few people outside urban growth centers obtain new ideas, knowledge and services which are needed to improve business operations, establish new business contacts or develop specific business skills.

ICT- MSMS and Gender Equity

• In view of this unexplored potential, there are different options for engaging ICT as innovative mode of delivery for SME-relevant information and knowledge-based services. ICT can contribute to achieving many desired development objectives related to education, economic development, such as creating income and employment opportunities for the poor at the “bottom of the pyramid”, and most important, to gender equity