Stories

Indonesian Delegates Attend Women Deliver Conference in Denmark

On 16 – 19 May 2016, some Indonesian delegates participated in the Global Conference Women Deliver in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Indonesian delegates were representing several institutions and organisations related to women issues, such as MAMPU Program, Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN), Indonesia’s National Family Planning Coalition (PKBI) and Indonesian Midwives Association.

Women Deliver’s 4th Global Conference is the largest gathering on girls’ and women’s health and rights in the last decade and one of the first major global conferences following the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The focus of the 2016 conference is on how to implement the SDGs, so they matter most for girls and women, with a specific focus on health – in particular maternal, sexual, and reproductive health and rights – and on gender equality, education, environment, and economic empowerment.

This four days conference was attended by thousands of delegates from various countries in the world, and prominent speakers such as Denmark Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Jim Yong Kim (World Bank Director), Muh Yunus (Grameen Bank Founder), Julia Gillard (former Australian Prime Minister) and Queen Maxima fron the Netherlands. There were also some expert and academics from several institutes.

Julia Gillard speaking about the importance of education to girls. Education is a long investement that would benefit everyone. To finance education, it needs to mobilise domestic resources by allocating budget to education and also transparency in education program. She reiterated that 63 millions girls have no access to education and never seen class room.

While World Bank director, Jim Yong Kim mentioned that women need to be included for a country to have higher economy growth.

Queen Maxima explained about 50 % of agriculture work is done by women, but this work is not recognised. She explains what is financial inclusion is access to saving, access to insurance and access to payment.

Kristian Jensen, Foreign Minister of Denmark, shared the Danish Government story that provides assistance for small business women to connect them directly with companies, thus it can cut cost. In the end these women can earned more money and have direct access to big companies.

Muh Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank and director of Yunus foundation speaking on the session ‘Investing women and girls everyone wins’. There are two key things in investing women and girls: 1) provide access to financial services, and 2) access to technology.

Grameen bank now provides loan for women to start business and student loan that enable women to send her daughter to School. Grameen Bank provides access to finance services that will unleash creative power even for the most desperate and poorest women. Grameen bank provides loan for poor women with conditions that they can afford and live with. They also provide loan for women in rural area to buy a mobile phone, then they opened a call service for rural people, so that women can make money from this bussiness.

Dean Karlan (Economist from Yale) speaking on session about the State of Phillanthropy. Micro credit is not achieving its main goal to increase income of women. But instead, it increases power of women to make decision in her family. What works according to him is providing access for women to saving account.

Reported by: Heni Pancaningtyas (Collective Action and Parliamentary Stream Manager – MAMPU Program)