Women in Poverty

 

 

 A Woman in Nairobi, Kenya using her voice.  According to the United Nations 70% of the worlds poor are Women.

 

‘Women make up majority of world’s poor’: UN Official

 

Women are overrepresented among the world’s poor who lack access to basic social services according to Michelle Bachelet, the Executive Director of UN Women.

 

Michelle Bachelet

 

Speaking at an event on social protection held in New York, she said that despite economic growth over the past six decades 75 per cent of the world’s people are still not covered by adequate social security.

Ms. Bachelet said that 1. 44 billion people around the world are poor living on less $1.25 a day.  

 

A woman and a child suffering from Acute Water Diarrhea in the Wanleweyn district, southern Somalia.

Photograph: Abdurashid Abikar/AFP/Getty Images

 

[Hundreds of thousands have been displaced in new conflicts, such as the one in Pakistan]

The United Nations says it needs $5bn to help the world’s poor this year, warning that the need for aid has never been greater.

John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, said on Tuesday that more than $4.8bn of the agency’s $9.5bn target for the year had yet to be raised – the biggest ever shortfall at the mid-year mark.

Holmes noted that the $4.6bn collected in the first half of the year “is the best ever result we’ve had at mid year and particularly, I think, noteworthy because of the economic and financial crisis that we’re all going through”.  Excerpt: www.thecornerreport.com 

 

The Women of Akbarpura

The group of women from the Mevat District in Haryana have driven all the way to Akbarpur to learn how to form a self help group of their own from the women at Akbarpura. For the next hour or so they had a long discussion on the mechanics of microfinancing, on how money should be saved, how loans should be dispensed, how to deal with defaulters etc. I felt I might has well have been in an office conference room in Bombay listining to suit clad MBAs rather than in village in rural rajastan in the company of very smart women in their colourful salwars.

The women of the village of Akbarpur in Alwar District Rajasthan are part of novel scheme – the women in the picture have formed a self help microfinancing group so that they can have a greater say in the welfare of there community. They meet every fortnight and collect money from each of their members on which they give out small loans – for a new buffallo or a water-punp or for some medical help. In the 2 years the 30 or women of this tiny village on the Alwar – Jaipur highway has a corpus of over 200,000 ruppees.  Excerpt: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lecercle/288387653/

 

Michelle Bachelet closes by saying:

“Women are in particularly vulnerable position. They are overrepresented among the poor and among those who lack access to basic social services and are underrepresented and under paid in the labour market. The lack of social protection is a social liability that undermines economic performance and nurtures political and institutional instability.”

 

 

 

Source:   www.unwomen.org  

 

 

A Celebration of Women