Dr. Nata Duvvury:

It is a great honour to be here and to present a few thoughts on gender equality in international development. I want to focus on gender-based violence. We are all aware of how important an issue this is but we do not necessarily understand the significant cost violence places on development itself and that it must therefore be addressed.

There are three ways in which violence affects development. It impacts on household economy, because households must spend a considerable amount of money to meet the out-of-pocket expenditures that are incurred when there is an incident of violence within the household. A study in Uganda showed that the out-of-pocket expenditure for households was $5, or 1.5% of the per capita GNI, per incident of violence. In research just concluded in Vietnam, we found that an incident of violence incurred out-of-pocket expenditures that amounted to 21% of monthly income for women. In India, we have calculated that out-of-pocket expenditure plus loss of income for missing work amounted to almost 30% of the monthly income of poor agricultural labourer households. This tells us that our anti-poverty alleviation programmes can be undermined by violence and that this is extremely important to bear in mind.

Violence has an impact upon the participation of women. We are all concerned that development should be on the basis of women's participation, but violence affects this.

Women are isolated and have very little social capital. Research has shown that women's participation in groups and social movements acts as a significant protective factor. We need inclusive development where we bring women out of the house and into the community and the economy. Violence impacts on long-term growth and it is very important to keep this in mind. The impact of violence on productivity is quite significant. Two studies conducted in 1996 found the productivity loss was 1.6% of GDP in Chile and approximately 2% in Nicaragua. Violence also impacts on schooling and the performance of children in school, which is an intergenerational cost of violence. This can impact on long-term growth, which requires developing human capital.

Evidence points to the importance of investing resources in preventing gender-based violence and enabling women to access the services they need after a violent incident. Irish Aid has been a very strong supporter of gender-based violence programmes and this should be recognised and applauded. The support given to the joint consortium on gender-based violence has been very important. The difficulty has been that there is very little integration of gender-based violence programming in other sectors, for example very little attention is paid to gender-based violence in agricultural sector programming. Gender-based violence programming is seen as legal programming to effect legislative frameworks and support women's groups, but it is not integrated sectorally in all of the main issues which underpin development.

The other issue in terms of gender equality and international development is the role of women in post-conflict reconstruction. Ireland has taken a very important first step by having a national action plan on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. It is very important that this comprehensive action plan is implemented without further delay.