Empowering women: an essential objective.

The empowerment of women--a basic human rights objective--is key to achieving development and population goals. Consequently, the International Conference on Population and Development aims to ensure that all population and development policies emphasize women's equality and advancement, including education, employment opportunities and access to health services.

"Improving the status of women also enhances their decision-making capacity at all levels in all spheres of life, especially in the area of sexuality and reproduction", states the Conference draft programme of action. "This, in turn, is essential for the long-term success of population programmes. Experience shows that population and development programmes are most effective when steps have simultaneously been taken to improve the status of women."

Education is particularly critical to empowering women in all aspects of their lives. Of the approximately 960 million illiterate adults worldwide, two thirds are women. Higher educational levels among women correspond to greater use of family planning, lower fertility rates and smaller families. In developing countries, it is estimated that each extra year of education a mother receives reduces her children's mortality rate by an average of 7 to 9 per cent.

Women's access to paying jobs also has an important bearing on population and development. Women who are part of the labour force tend to marry later and have smaller families than those who are not.

The draft action programme calls for countries to empower women and close the gender gap as soon as possible by:

* establishing mechanisms for women's equal participation at all levels of the political process and public life in each community and society:

* promoting the fulfilment...