UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ARRIVES TONIGHT TO GRACE ECA CONFERENCE, WHICH OPENS WITH STRONG CALLS FOR EMPOWERMENT OF AFRICAN WOMEN

Addis Ababa, 29 April 1998

The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, arrives here later today to participate in an international conference the Economic Commission for Africa is organizing to galvanize action in the economic empowerment of Africa's women.

Highlights of Mr. Annan's visit will include:

Inauguration, with Ethiopian President Negasso Gidada, of the new UN Conference Centre in Addis Ababa (Thursday, 15:00 - 16:00 hrs)

Presentation of a keynote address at a plenary on "Post-Beijing: The United Nations and the Advancement of African Women" (Thursday 16:30 - 19:00 hrs)

Participation in a Forum of Heads of State and Government (Friday 09:00 - 13:00 hrs)

Press Conference - UNCC-AA (Saturday 12:15 - 13:00 hrs) Mr. Annan will also hold talks with Ethiopian Government officials, parliamentarians and UN agency heads, before leaving on Saturday 2 May for an 11-day tour of eastern Africa which will take him to Djibouti, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Eritrea.

The Conference, coinciding with the Commission's 40th anniversary and attended by more than 800 people, opened here yesterday with strong assertions that unless the conditions of African women were alleviated, there could be no meaningful development.20 In his address, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi stressed that aiming towards gender equality was not simply dictated by justice, but that -- since women made up at least half of the continent's population -- it was a matter of practical necessity.

"The effective and genuine promotion of gender equality and the protection of rights of women in Africa is inextricably bound up with commitment to grassroots democracy," Mr. Zenawi said. The call was echoed by UN Under-Secretary-General and ECA Executive-Secretary K.Y. Amoako, who, in outlining the many social ills that afflict African women, informed that ECA had chosen gender issues "as the single greatest cross-cutting issue for our work" because in there could be no development without the full participation of women at all levels. Predicting that a new era of gender integration and equality for women was opening up for Africa, heralding a golden age, Mr. Amoako warned that "progress for women... requires the fair and widespread promotion of human rights, for if the rights of a bit over half of society are not an issue in human rights, then the term 'human rights' is meaningless."

Mr. Amoako expressed his hope that the Conference would yield new synergies and opportunities to strengthen support of Africa's policy-makers, adding that he also hoped "we will work together for expanded partnerships within Africa and between Africa and its friends abroad to hasten a new era for women in Africa and to exploit and make far more obvious the enormous opportunities for social development of all Africans."

In a statement read on her behalf by Tadelech Haile Mikael, Ethiopian Minister of Women's Affairs, Ms. Gertrude Mongella, Secretary-General of the Fourth World Conference on Women, commended ECA for placing gender at the centre all the Commision's core programmes, and for its gender-sensitive hiring policy. She urged provision of education,water and health services, an agricultural revolution with better production and processing technologies, and involvement of the youth, who "own the future". Mats Karlsson, State Secretary of Sweden's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, highlighted the strategic importance of the gender revolution in the African renaissance, and praised ECA's renewal. He urged investment in women and by women as the key to development. "To say simply that if we fight poverty we will help a lot of women is not t enough. Turn it around. It is by empowering women that we will have a chance to eradicate poverty," Mr. Karlsson said.

During the opening ceremony, Organization of African Unity (OAU) Secretary-General Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, announced the establishment by ECA and OAU of a 15-member African Women's Committee for Peace and Development, whose aim was to promote the role of women in the resolution of the continent's conflicts.20 The Opening Ceremony was followed by a plenary session in which keynote speakers expounded on the four conference themes: Governance, Economies, Information Technology and the New Generation. The Conference then broke up into thematic working groups, to deal with the 22 sub-themes emanating from the four themes. The highlight of tomorrow's proceedings will a session entitled 'Framework for Partnerships', during which the strategy for action emerging from the Conference will be put together, and the UN plenary .