United Nations A/S-23/PV.3 General Assembly Official Records Twenty-third special session 3rd meeting Tuesday, 6 June 2000, 10 a.m. New York President: Mr. Gurirab ............................................. (Namibia) The meeting was called to order at 10.05 a.m. strategic plan, which covers the period 1996 to 2001, identifies five priority areas: first, the persistent and growing burden of poverty on women and their Agenda items 8 and 9 (continued) unequal access to resources and lack of participation in economic structures and policies; secondly, inequality Review and appraisal of progress made in the in access to opportunities in education, skills implementation of the twelve critical areas of development and training; thirdly, women’s unequal concern in the Beijing Platform for Action access to health and related services; fourthly, Further actions and initiatives for overcoming inequality between women and men in the sharing of obstacles to the implementation of the Beijing power and decision-making; and fifthly, the rights of Platform for Action the girl child. In addition, there are six underlying and cross- The President: The Assembly will first hear a cutting issues identified as important in addressing the statement by His Excellency The Right Honourable critical areas of concern. The cross-cutting issues are as Lieutenant-General Christon Tembo, Vice-President of follows: first, the critical role of the media at all levels; the Republic of Zambia. secondly, the need for gender-disaggregated data; Lieutenant-General Tembo (Zambia): Allow me thirdly, the establishment of effective institutional to express my Government’s appreciation that a nation mechanisms; fourthly, promoting the human rights of of our subregional grouping, the Southern African women; fifthly, considering the implications of cultural Development Community (SADC), through you, Mr. and traditional Westernization in all areas; and sixthly, President, is presiding over this important special the rural, peri-urban and urban trichotomy of the session of the General Assembly. We wish to take this Zambian population. opportunity to congratulate you, Sir, on the efficient I am pleased to inform this special session that and able manner in which you are guiding the business the Zambian Government and other stakeholders have of this session. endeavoured to implement the national plan with Zambia has, since the Fourth World Conference considerable results. The details of the measures on Women, made great strides in implementing the undertaken, achievements made and obstacles Beijing Platform for Action and has made significant encountered are reflected in a national mid-term review progress in accomplishing specific commitments. We report, which has been widely circulated among United began our national implementation process by Nations agencies, Member States and others. translating the Beijing Platform for Action into a national plan for the advancement of women. The This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the interpretation of speeches delivered in the other languages. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room C-178. Corrections will be issued after the end of the session in a consolidated corrigendum. 00-46443 (E) ````````` A/S-23/PV.3 The Zambian Cabinet adopted the first national vulnerability to infection, especially among women. gender policy on the 6 March 2000. This is a landmark The effect of HIV/AIDS on economic capacity is document that prescribes policy measures that cut particularly significant. Associated with AIDS-related across sectors, institutional structures and issues and deaths are huge medical expenses and loss of human aim at enhancing gender responsive development. We capital. Estimates state that without foreign capital are convinced that the policy will accelerate the inflows into Zambia, costs of medical treatment, implementation of the Platform for Action. attrition and other costs associated with AIDS would result in a fall in gross domestic product of about 9 per Given that political will and enthusiasm exist at cent below normal projected levels. Without an all levels in Zambia, we consider the implementation of unprecedented infusion of foreign aid, our national the Platform for Action as an integral part of our income would therefore be reduced significantly. national development process. We therefore continue to make every effort to mainstream gender in all our Zambia is in the category of highly indebted poor policies and programmes. countries. In this regard, the debt burden is a major contributor to the persistence of its underdevelopment. In the process of implementing the Platform for Zambia’s debt-servicing obligations constitute the Action, we have identified a number of obstacles and single largest item of expenditure in the public budget. challenges which have affected the implementation It far outstrips expenditure on health, education or any process. The issues we have identified are certainly not other sector. new; they are, in fact, referred to in the Beijing Platform for Action. However, they have far-reaching Debt servicing has a significant impact on public implications for Government’s capacity to implement budgets, and thus has severely shrunk resources the Platform for Action. available for development and has greatly reduced the prospects for growth. Inequalities are created and Key obstacles that have hampered our increased by debt not only through income, but also in implementation include, first, household poverty; respect of gender. secondly, huge national debt; and thirdly, the HIV/AIDS pandemic. These three major obstacles, Evidently, Zambia has a legitimate reason to seek among others, pose a serious threat to the Platform for significant debt relief, if not outright debt cancellation. Action. We require strong and concerted national and It has religiously continued to implement structural and international efforts in order to surmount them. other reforms. It remains committed to debt servicing, albeit to the detriment of our priorities in the social Household poverty is an extremely serious sectors, particularly in regard to poverty alleviation. problem in Zambia. Currently, approximately 70 per Debt servicing assumes availability of resources for cent of the population lives below the poverty line, the development through donor assistance. Debt servicing majority being women. Women and men experience has in the main, however, deprived the country of poverty in different ways. The feminization of poverty resources that would have been channelled towards is less a question of whether more women than men are development activities. The reality of the situation is poor than the severity of poverty, and of the greater that the outflow through debt servicing far exceeds hardships women face in lifting themselves and their inflows through external aid. There is therefore a need children out of the poverty trap. The wide range of for foreign debt-relief initiatives to go beyond the biases in society and the unequal opportunities in existing framework in order to increase the financial education, employment and access to and control over flows of resources to highly indebted developing productive resources, such as land, means that women countries. have fewer opportunities. There are other challenges that will require strong The impact of HIV/AIDS on women and children national and international collaboration and has emerged as a very serious one. A combination of partnership. Violence against women and children, physiological and socio-economic factors makes particularly girls, is a menace to human development. women more vulnerable to HIV infection than men. Another challenge is the impact of the socio-economic Poverty and HIV/AIDS are therefore closely linked. globalization process on our economy. There is a direct Poverty contributes to the spread of HIV and relationship between poor performance of the accentuates its impact. Poverty creates situations of 2 A/S-23/PV.3 economies of developing countries and the global women had the right to elect and to be elected. Turkey economic system, which is presently biased in favour was one of them. The civil code enacted in 1926 of developed countries. Unless the global economic contained significantly advanced provisions in the field system promotes growth in least developed countries, of gender equality. Today, building upon that legacy, important development programmes, such as the we relentlessly pursue our goals: to enhance the status Beijing Platform for Action, can realize only minimal of women, to ensure gender equality and to promote results. the participation of women at all levels of social life. We have made some important achievements in this We wish to express sincere appreciation to the regard. But we know that the current situation calls for United Nations for conducting meetings to follow up much improvement. the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action at national levels. At Beijing, five years ago, Turkey made significant commitments. We committed ourselves to I wish to conclude by reaffirming my withdraw the reservations we had placed on the United Government’s commitment to implementing the Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Beijing Platform for Action. This is a responsibility