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Questions for HM Queen Noor regarding the International Steering Committee on the Economic Advancement of Rural Women (ISC) Meeting in Amman, May 14 - 16. Q1. Your Majesty, you were quoted in The Jordan Times on May 15 as describing the Noor Al Hussein Foundation (NHF) project in Wadi Seer as helping to create "a more enlightened, active and valued rural woman." Can you explain how the Wadi Seer Development Project and other NHF activities are helping to create these characteristics in Jordanian rural women? Do you think that the creation of a "more enlightened" rural woman is one of the fundamental prerequisites of advancing their position? My development experience in Jordan for the past 18 years has confirmed that comprehensive integrated community development, with special emphasis on women, is an essential catalyst for overall sustainable development. At the Noor Al Hussein Foundation (NHF) we have established innovative projects which build upon our country's traditions and heritage to advance and modernize development thinking. With the assistance of United Nations and other international agencies, we have implemented several successful projects that address the community's combined social, economic, environmental and political needs in some of the most deprived areas of Jordan. These projects offer women education and training, improved access to social services, and opportunities for involvement in the local and national economy and greater participation in community decision-making. Women have subsequently increased their participation in local community, economic and social affairs; family incomes have risen; female school enrollment rates have increased and drop-out rates have declined. Education and training are key to the empowerment of women and to rapid socio-economic development; for an educated women, wife and mother imparts her knowledge and enhanced awareness to every member of her family. As women, especially rural women, are given the means to develop their personal capabilities, to expand their opportunities and to participate in the decision-making process, they themselves will actively champion their cause by addressing issues of particular concern to them such as labor and inheritance laws, micro-credit for women, increased educational and training opportunities and improved access to socio-economic services. Q2. Your Majesty's speech as President of the ISC, which opened the meeting in Amman, highlighted how rural women's disadvantage is related to the comparative advantage enjoyed by men -- the lack of direct access to financial support for agriculture and the amount of money tied-up in (male-dominated) family farms. Is not the creation of "more enlightened" men, willing to allow women a faired share of resources and decision-making in rural areas, a fundamental prerequisite too? Your Majesty, you spoke of the contribution made by the NHF projects in "modernizing cultural traditions and social sensibilities." Can you explain what this means and does a such a development suggest both the way forward for rural women, but at the same time the threat of a major social reaction? Ten years ago in our Women-in-Development programs at the NHF, we began by developing alternatives to conventional centralized social welfare schemes for women by introducing modern business management concepts into training and innovative income-generating projects, which are oriented towards both local and international markets. As these women become genuine economic forces in their communities, with the power to decide on the disposal of their income, their status and influence have increased as has the overall quality of life and stability in the community. I have found the greatest gains for women and for society as whole to have been achieved where women have improved their legal, educational, and social status, but have not abandoned their traditional role as the anchor of the family unit. The NHF projects consequently offer women a choice between working at home or at a production center. Older women often opt to work from home as they do not want to disrupt their traditional life-style. The key to our success has been and remains the close collaboration of the women and men of local communities to determine their own goals, to devise and implement strategies to achieve them. For example, the NHF's Quality of Life Project, which we initiated in 1988 in cooperation with The World Health Organization (WHO) in one of the poorest villages, emphasized comprehensive integrated community development in which all members participate in the decision making process. In our first village, in a very conservative part of the country, I was encouraged by the number of women nominated to the Village Development Council responsible for all aspects of the community's development plans. This healthy interaction and sharing of responsibilities gradually led to what I have described as "modernizing cultural traditions and social sensibilities", based on respect for our traditions and culture. Each community has a unique history that shapes its concerns. It is impossible to promote positive change without respect for what already exists, for it is only with the support of the entire community that change can be effected. Another important issue has been that of gender stereotyping at all levels of society. We are making slow but steady progress. For example, last year, the Ministry of Education conducted a study on all textual references to women in order to abolish all discriminatory references to and stereotypes of women as well as to highlight women's rights and their diverse socio-economic roles within the revised educational curriculum. Women, who in the past were always portrayed as housewives in the kitchen, are now shown as scientists and inventors in science books, as ministers and parliamentarians in social studies texts, as poets and novelists in Arabic textbooks and as broadcasters and police officers in English textbooks. Q3. Your Majesty, in your speech you made a number of practical proposals for improving the lot of rural women. These include changes to existing policy affecting land ownership, inheritance and credit rules. Would reform of existing laws effect change of the kind you seek -- how extensive would the reform need to be? Is the political climate right for such changes at the present time? The consensus world-wide is that gender discrimination in land-ownership, labor, inheritance and credit rules is detrimental to the development process. One blatant example is that 40% of rural women work on their family farms without wage payments and when paid, they receive less cash wages than males who do the same work. The Geneva Declaration for Rural Women, which was the first of its kind in that it focuses exclusively on rural women, called for improved access to credit and financial services on the basis of gender equality; review of land legislation to ensure women have full access to land and are the direct beneficiaries of agrarian reform or settlement programs; support for programs and projects which raise rural women's non-agricultural self-employment and improve their access to micro-enterprises as well as increasing resources to maintain and improve social services in the areas of education health, family planning, nutrition and recreation. Although the political climate and laws governing these issues in each country vary, it is clear from our meetings which have reflected conditions in all major regions of the world that a constructive momentum for change is developing in most of our societies. Q4. Your Majesty, your address to the ISC emphasized the value of education for the advancement of women, and drew attention to its impact on child mortality (as highlighted by the UN and others) as greater than the supply of proper sanitation and clean water. How would you envisage the Jordanian economy accommodating a workforce in which educated women from rural areas play a greater part? Would this not require a fundamental shift in the very nature of the Jordanian economy? On the contrary, Jordan, through the Ministry of Social Development, has been promoting the education and training of rural men and women, in particular, in order to augment social, cultural and economic development. Jordan's five-year economic and social development plan established in 1992, outlines an extensive restructuring program that targets the rural sectors as key beneficiaries of economic reform, privatization and modernization by integrating within the labor force educated rural women, who have been provided with training, credit facilities and upgraded technology. The development process in the Near East is facing new realities and challenges as well as political, economic and social changes. Therefore, it is essential, not only to train our rural citizens to plan, implement and execute development projects, but also to enhance regional cooperation in agrarian reform and rural development. Q5. Your Majesty, you spoke of the halving of female illiteracy in Jordan in the last two decades to 28% of women. Will the eradication of illiteracy require substantially more government spending (from already limited resources) or can further improvements be achieved by allowing women greater opportunities in their own rural communities? Actually, as I mentioned in my speech, illiteracy among women has been more than halved from 48% in 1979 to 20%; furthermore, it should be noted that illiteracy is more prevalent among the older (generation of) women. Three particular programs have been influential in reducing illiteracy among women: compulsory education (1st - 10th grade -- according to UNICEF, 98% of school children in Jordan reach grade 5), an increasing range of illiteracy eradication programs and adult education programs offered by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Moreover, the Ministry of Education has been encouraging increased female enrollment in vocational training courses as women account for only 20% of the total number of students in vocational training schools. Non-governmental organizations, like the NHF, offer free training for the management and implementation of small scale, self-employment business schemes for needy women. In addition, the NHF, in cooperation with the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, initiated Small Business Counseling, which provides business advice and financial support for women entrepreneurs. Q6. Your Majesty, do you think that the Economic Restructuring Program (ERP) agreed on by Jordan and the IMF will have a beneficial impact on the lives of rural women? A concern recently voiced in the opinion columns of The Jordan Times was that the cutting of the bread subsidy may be hard to explain to the poor as an attack on merchants getting rich from the existing bread subsidy. Is the private-public development model exemplified by the NHF compatible with the IMF's model of economic development? More than a decade ago, the NHF sought to advance development thinking through several model development projects which presented an alternative to traditional charity-oriented social welfare practices that integrated social development strategies more closely with national economic priorities. NHF's income-generating projects are market-oriented and focus on products that cater to local, regional and international demand and consumption. Small-scale agricultural projects have trained women and communities to turn their home gardens, unexploited lands and communal spaces into market gardens for medicinal herbs, fruit and vegetable produce, fishponds as well as goat, cow and poultry raising. These provide income-generation through diminished reliance on exports, food production and raise the standard of health and nutrition. The medicinal herb schemes, for example, has yielded in just over one year, nearly 10% of Jordan's imports of essential herbs such as thyme and sage. The National Handicrafts Development Project sparked the revival and expansion of the traditional crafts industry by strengthening and creating new markets for the production of innovative high quality handicrafts such as ceramics, embroidery, woven rugs and wool products which now provides a substantial regular income to previously impoverished communities. The Quality of Life model, which, I mentioned earlier, introduced to Jordan a participatory, comprehensive integrated development strategy that has been adopted by the public sector as a model for public-private partnerships to promote self-reliance within communities and relieve the central government of its enormous burden of responsibility. Last February our Prime Minister Abdul Karim Kabariti presented to parliament a 9 point program that to accelerate a free market economy, which encourages the private sector to assume a dominant role in national economic growth and reduction of state involvement in commercial ventures. The government's key objective is to attain economic self-reliance by achieving sustainable comprehensive growth that would address the problem of unemployment and reduce poverty. This would be done through continued adherence to the economic restructuring schemes agreed with the IMF, by offering incentives to banks to finance local and small-scale business ventures and by assisting needy families through the creation of new jobs. As a result of the program, the Ministry of Social Development, in a bid to reduce the rate of poverty and unemployment and to make up for the hike in the prices of commodities, introduced small income-generating projects for underprivileged families in all the governorates rather than continue to provide monthly stipends to the poor. Q7. His Majesty told the ISC meeting in Amman of how the development policies of one state can adversely affect those of another and that rural women will feel the effect of this the most harshly. Can you have "development in one country"? Our region is undergoing widespread socio-economic transformation and is also beginning to explore the new opportunities provided by the ongoing Arab-Israeli peace process. Jordan has always promoted regional cooperation in order to maximize both regional and national development, which to a large extent are interdependent and whose progress is constantly threatened by diverse factors including the disparities in income and resources, lack of cooperation and the disproportionate use of resources for military purposes rather than for socio-economic advancement and development. Jordan hosted the Middle East and North Africa Summit (MENA) in Amman last year. These summits present opportunities for us in the region to more effectively position women's issues and priorities, particularly those of rural women and the girl child, on the regional economic agenda. The NHF also plays a unique role in enhancing regional development by initiating and supporting national, regional and international projects in the fields of women and community development, education, child welfare, environmental protection, culture and heritage as well as through outreach programs in other Arab countries. |
