Lenihan vows to make gender equality a priority

The Minister for State for Development, Conor Lenihan, pledged today to make the issue of gender equality in the developing world a priority for his department.

Mr Lenihan said gender equality was a civil rights issue and said his department would work with Non-Governmental Organisations with a view to making recommendations for further action in this area.

Mr Lenihan was speaking at the launch in Dublin of a report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) entitled The State of World Population 2005.

The report explores the degree to which the world is meeting targets laid out in the eight Millennium Development Goals - a United Nations blueprint to halve world poverty, improve education and reduce inequality by 2015.

By assessing progress and identifying shortfalls around the world, the report finds that the empowerment of women through education, access to reproductive health services and an end to gender-based violence are all critical to the goal of poverty reduction.

Mr Brendan O'Brien, chief strategic planning officer at the UNPFA, said world leaders could not make poverty history until gender discrimination was also made history.

By improving education, economic opportunity, human rights and reproductive health for women and young people, 30 million children and two million mothers could have their lives spared, he said.

The Irish Family Planning Association called on the Government to extend funding to family planning and reproductive health programmes in developing counties.

IFPA chairperson, Catherine Forde said: "It is our view that there is a moral and social responsibility on the Minister for State for Overseas Aid to prioritise investment in programmes concerned with behavioural change, contraception and sex education. These are key actions in preventing the transmission of HIV in developing countries."

Mr Lenihan said he hoped that his department would be able to show tangible results on the issue in a year's time.