Empowering women: more education, better health care, less poverty.

• Author: Seufert-Barr, Nancy
• Position: Includes related article on literacy programs - Fourth World Conference on Women - Cover Story

The young girl, a fifth grader, says goodbye to her classmates. Her mother died recently and she now has to stay home to cook and bring lunch to her father in the field where he works. At home, her grandmother, very old and blind, chides her son for withdrawing his daughter from school. "I will cook", she says. "But how can you? You are blind", he says. "What I can see being blind, you cannot see with your eyes open", the old woman replies.

The message of this dramatized public service announcement, broadcast frequently on national television in Bangladesh, is clear. This country, like many other developing countries, is opening its eyes to the reality that with almost two thirds of its female population illiterate, national development is severely hampered.

Therefore, education, along with poverty, health care, the environment and other issues, is one of the critical areas of concern identified by the UN for discussion at the upcoming Fourth World Conference on Women.

Poor, overworked and illiterate--this is the profile of most adult, rural women in the majority of developing countries. Although more girls and women are entering school, and near universal literacy has been achieved for young people in many regions, huge gaps exist in women's education and literacy, especially among adults--the caretakers and providers for whom the ability to read and write can make a world of difference.

According to the 1993 World Education Report of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 905 million men and women--almost a quarter of the world's adult population--are illiterate. About 587 million, 65 per cent of them, are women.

According to Conference Secretary-General Gertrude Mongella, if women are to contribute effectively to national development into the twenty first century, "the fundamental question is whether they will be sufficiently equipped to participate fully by receiving a quality education that will prepare them to enter any field, expose them to science, technology and communications and stimulate their creativity".

Pivotal links

Another critical area of concern is the status of women's health and their access to health care, which have been identified as pivotal links between the health of a population and its prospects for sustainable development.

"Setting an agenda for women's health must begin with a recognition of the fact not only that the health situation of women is different from that of men, but also...