'IF WE WANT TO SAVE AFRICA, WE MUST SAVE AFRICA'S WOMEN FIRST', SAYS
SECRETARY-GENERAL

10/12/2002

Press Release SG/SM/8550/Rev.1 AFR/530/Rev.1 SG/SM/8550/Rev.1*
AFR/530/Rev.1* 10 December 2002

'IF WE WANT TO SAVE AFRICA, WE MUST SAVE AFRICA'S WOMEN FIRST', SAYS
SECRETARY-GENERAL

Following is the address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on receiving an
Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cape Town, delivered at
Columbia University, New York, 9 December 2002:

I am deeply moved by the honour you have bestowed on me tonight. The
University of Cape Town is not only a great institution of learning, and
as such a natural ally of the United Nations. As a powerful symbol of
South Africa's diversity and democracy, UCT is also an inspiration to
the continent and to the world. Today is all the more moving to me
because I am surrounded by dear friends. I am honoured to be among
Africans whose contributions to our continent have inspired several
generations.

UCT Chancellor Graça Machel, if I could quote you here: "If we are
really to develop any further as human beings, then we must now declare
war on the causes of disempowerment: poverty and the lack of democracy
in our world." Graça, you are living proof that the lifeline of Africa
is its women. And if Africa is to grow stronger, we need its women to
remain strong.

For decades, we have known that the best way for Africa to thrive is to
ensure that its women have the freedom, the power and the knowledge to
take decisions affecting their own lives and those of their families and
communities. Africa's women have borne the brunt of caring for the
young, the old, the sick and dying, the survival of households, the
sustaining of livelihoods and sustaining of the cycle of life itself.

In the United Nations family, we have always known that our work for
development depends on a successful partnership with the African farmer
and her husband. Study after study has shown that there is no effective
development strategy in which women do not play a central role. When
women are fully involved, the benefits can be seen immediately: families
are healthier; they are better fed; their income, savings and
reinvestment go up. And what is true of families is true of communities
and, eventually, of whole countries.

Today, the lifeline that women in Southern Africa represent is being
threatened by two mutually reinforcing emergencies: famine and AIDS.
Many of you here tonight know this better than I do -- especially you,
Graça. But it is vitally important that the rest of the world should
know it, too. More than 14 million people are now at risk of starvation
in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. At the
same time, all six of these predominantly agricultural societies are
battling serious AIDS epidemics. This is no coincidence: AIDS and famine
are directly linked. Because of AIDS, farming skills are being lost,
agricultural development efforts are declining, rural livelihoods are
disintegrating, productive capacity to work the land is dropping and
household earnings are shrinking, while the cost of caring for the ill
is rising exponentially.

At the same time, AIDS is spreading dramatically and disproportionately
among women. The Epidemic Update for 2002, released just two weeks ago,
shows that for the first time, women make up 50 per cent of the global
AIDS epidemic -- and in Africa that figure is now 58 per cent. Today,
AIDS has a woman's face. It is hard to imagine a more cruel or crippling
combination than the current one. AIDS has already caused untold
suffering by killing almost 2.5 million Africans this year alone, and
leaving 11 million African children orphaned since the epidemic began.
Now it is depriving these countries of their capacity to resist famine,
by weakening exactly those mechanisms that enable populations to fight
back -- the coping mechanisms provided by women.

Let us look back at famine in the age before AIDS: in all past famines
for which we have data, women proved more resilient than men. Their
survival rate was higher, and their coping mechanisms were stronger.
Women used their expert knowledge of alternative foods that can be found
even in times of drought to feed their families. As droughts came round
once a decade or so, women who had experienced the last one or two
droughts became particularly invaluable because of the expertise they
passed on to younger women. Women developed and nurtured social networks
that helped societies to share out the burden. And in the most
fundamental human form of adaptation to famine, women were able to
withstand the pangs of hunger and keep going, while ensuring the
survival of their children. But today, as AIDS is eroding the strength
of Africa's women, it is eroding the skills, experience and networks
that kept their families and communities going.

Even before falling ill, a woman will often have to care for a sick
husband -- and the amount of time she has available for the tasks of
planting, harvesting and marketing drops by up to 60 per cent. When her
husband dies, she is often deprived of credit, distribution networks, or
land rights. When she becomes ill, with her immune system compromised,
battling through the pangs of hunger is no longer an option. She will
fall sick and will be unable to work and care for her children. When she
dies, the household will risk collapsing completely, leaving orphans to
fend for themselves. Her children -- especially girls -- will be taken
out of school to work in the home or the farm. They will lack their
mothers' skills to keep the family livelihood going. And, at the same
time -- in the cruellest form of double burden -- these girls, deprived
of an education, and of the confidence an education brings, will be even
less able to protect themselves against AIDS.

Friends, the lifeline of these countries is indeed at risk of being
severed. We must ensure this doesn't happen -- that the double burden
the current crisis imposes on women does not break the very cycle of
life. For Africa to survive, its women must survive. Just as this crisis
is different from famines of the past, we must look beyond our relief
efforts of the past and see what needs to be done. Just shipping in food
is not enough. A comprehensive international effort is needed -- and let
me add that, in this effort, there can be no place for the political
manipulation of desperately needed food supplies. No African leader
should ever stoop to such cynical exploitation of human misery.

Our effort will have to combine food assistance and new approaches to
farming with treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. It will require
integrated HIV and famine early-warning and analysis systems. It will
require new agricultural techniques, appropriate to a depleted
workforce. It will require a renewed effort to wipe out HIV-related
stigma and silence, for in the world of AIDS, silence means death. It
will require innovative and large-scale responses to care and support
for those most vulnerable -- especially orphans -- and special measures
to enable children in AIDS-affected communities to stay in school.

For young people to protect themselves against the epidemic, education
is the most powerful weapon there is. Above all, this new international
effort must put women at the centre of our strategy to fight AIDS.
Examples show that there is hope, and there is reason to hope. The
recent Epidemic Update shows that HIV infection rates in Uganda continue
to decline. In South Africa, infection rates for women under 20 have
started to decrease. That suggests prevention efforts are bearing fruit.
In Zambia, HIV rates show signs of dropping among women in urban areas
and younger women in rural areas. In Ethiopia, infection levels have
fallen among young women in the centre of Addis Ababa.

We must build on those successes and replicate them elsewhere. That
calls for leadership, partnership and imagination. And yes, it will
require resources -- both from the international community and from the
governments of Africa. Graça, I have quoted you before on this, and I
hope you will forgive me if I do so again: "If you can mobilize
resources for war, why can't you mobilize resources for life?" And I
have said this before, too: women not only have the right answers. They
also ask the right questions. That is why, in Africa, it is women who
keep life going. And it is why, if we want to save Africa, we must save
Africa's women first. Thank you very much.

End