W8 Summit
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S2M-2951, in the name of Christine Grahame, on the W8 summit. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the W8 Conference taking place in Edinburgh on 23 June 2005, where eight African women will address the conference; believes that these eight women could change the face of Africa if given some of the support and decision-making power of the G8 leaders meeting at Gleneagles, and notes that these woman have all made significant contributions across Africa and that their voices need to be heard so that practical solutions at grass roots level are not overlooked among welcome, but often remote, international diplomacy.
I rise this evening to speak the words of Hauwa Ibrahim, who is in the public gallery, just as in 1999 a man had to speak her words in court because, as a woman, she was prohibited from speaking. Hauwa is an extraordinary woman and I will never forget her compelling speech at the W8 conference today. These are her words:
"I am married with two sons and I've worked pro bono on 10 cases of women accused of adultery—some sentenced to be stoned to death, some sentenced to flogging—and several cases of boys sentenced to amputation for offences like stealing cattle. I was born and brought up a Muslim. My father was … one of the mullahs who call for prayers. It was not allowed for girls to go beyond the elementary schools (in my village). At the age of 12, 13, you should be ready for marriage. I refused to get married because I thought, ‘I want to get more education.' I picked up a newspaper on the road, and I saw a university graduate with a four-square cap. And I thought, ‘I must be like that person.' I funded my schooling by picking roots to hawk. I was hawking anything that is hawkable—food items, vegetables, peanuts.
I practiced law in the northern part of Nigeria, and it exposed me to the entire 19 states of the federation. That's into the hinterland, some of the places you can't go by bicycle or motorbike. I had to use camels or donkeys to get to the villages. But I was determined to go out and do the work. We have 11 cases for amputation that I am handling. They are in Sokoto prison, nine of them are under the age of 18 … I do feel uncomfortable, at times fearful. When it comes to the issue of death, the moment you stone the first woman, there may be no stopping of it. And I cannot live with that. Because of that, I fight … I fight my fear. Almost all those women … are from a very poor background, the same background that I came from. I feel that I'm returning back to humanity what I was given in terms of my education".
Thank you.
My compliments and congratulations to Christine Grahame on securing this evening's debate and on setting up the cross-party group on W8, which I am delighted to chair.
I am twinned with Dr Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of UN-HABITAT, which is the agency within the United Nations that is charged with responsibility for managing the human settlements programme. She is also a member of the Commission for Africa.
After the millennium declaration, the status of UN-HABITAT was enhanced. There was a recognition that already more than 1 billion people were living in urban slums after having left the countryside because of poverty, starvation, crop failure and a belief that life would be better in the city. The first goal of the agency is to eradicate poverty and hunger.
Women are struggling to promote gender equality. We think that we know about gender equality. I look round the chamber and I see many sisters who have daughters, but we know nothing compared with women in Africa. Members should imagine a daughter trying to go to school but not being able to because she is a girl. As I have said before, we talk a lot about inequality in the chamber. Yes, we experience inequality in this country, but we know nothing compared with those young African girls.
The tragedy of AIDS and the abysmal failure of Governments in Africa, America and Europe to tackle it effectively have placed a huge burden on women. Across Africa, many women—often elderly women—have become the backbone of families. It is a political scandal that the collective disregard shown by Governments and pharmaceutical industries for the plight of those suffering from AIDS has resulted in lives being lost and families being devastated and left without hope.
Women in developing countries are performing important economic and social duties. They are the centre of the fair trade movement and they are natural entrepreneurs. In one part of Africa alone, women have started more than 43,000 small businesses. They have a low default rate and have proven themselves to be reliable in all microcredit schemes. However, as I have already said, those women are not equal. They cannot own or inherit property; they cannot refuse sex even when they know that their husband has AIDS; and 70 per cent of them are illiterate.
One way of achieving change is to encourage more women to become elected members. The process is painfully slow, but women are challenging a centuries-old male domination that is allied with oppression and corruption.
What has to be hammered home at the G8 summit is that aid will go not to corrupt and undemocratic regimes but to the people who are in desperate need. The aid should go to women's co-operatives, to farmers, to health workers and to hospitals and not to the Mugabes of this world. Women who run small businesses in their villages, women who are the mainstay of so many African families and women who are elected representatives will all be extremely important in the campaign to make poverty history. Nelson Mandela said that
"poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome".
Women can make that happen. I am proud to play a small part in that endeavour.
I would like to thank Christine Grahame for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate on the W8 summit. On behalf of all of us, I extend grateful thanks to Lesley Riddoch for her commitment to women in Africa, for her role in addressing poverty in Africa and for helping to bring us together as a group.
Christine Grahame, Maureen Macmillan and I attended the first sessions of today's conference. We were fortunate to hear Hauwa Ibrahim give one of the most moving and memorable speeches that I will ever hear in my life. I also met Alivera Kiiza, who is in the gallery. Unfortunately, I was unable to stay to hear her speak.
I would like to talk about Alivera Kiiza and the Cafédirect model of making women farmers powerful in African co-operatives. She has overcome many of the barriers that Trish Godman outlined. We should forget the old days when Scots bought Fairtrade products because it was politically correct to do so and not because it tasted good. Cafédirect and other Fairtrade brands are winning awards for the quality of their teas, coffees and chocolates and creating successful community enterprises that should attract the attention of any passing G8 politician.
Cafédirect was created at the height of the coffee crisis in 1991, buying direct from coffee growers and selling the pick of their crops to western countries. A greater market share for Africans means less poverty in Africa, and Oxfam estimates that, if Africa could increase its share of world trade by only 1 per cent, that would generate five times more income than it currently receives in aid and debt relief. However, developing countries face tariffs that prevent them from trading freely in the west, where our own farmers still receive large subsidies. Fair trade breaks that cycle by giving growers a decent income for their crops while ensuring that consumers enjoy high-quality products.
It took 10 years for men in the Karagwe District Co-operative Union to take the radical and non-traditional step of making their wives owners of trees. Karagwe is in the most remote region of north-west Tanzania and the union represents 67 individual co-operatives with more than 17,500 coffee farmers. Members of the KDCU were asked to send three women and three men to Cafédirect producer partnership workshops and the women soon spoke out. Although women do a lot of work on the farms, the coffee crop traditionally belongs to men; women do not often benefit directly from coffee sales. One woman told how she was beaten by her husband when she asked what had happened to the money that he got for selling coffee.
During a visit to the district, Cafédirect staff spotted a young woman called Alivera Kiiza as someone with strong views on women's empowerment. She agreed to help to facilitate the workshops and was then chosen to address the Fairtrade conference in London. That made a huge impact on her authority within the co-operative. This is what she wrote when she returned to Karagwe:
"I am the first woman from my community here in Tanzania to go to the UK, to go very far from my place. No woman has gone from here representing the women of Karagwe until me. As a result, women farmers are joining their co-operative societies. I tell them it is the women in UK who buy Fairtrade products—I have seen this with my own eyes. I will encourage women to sell the coffee they have in their own names instead of the names of their husbands. They will become leaders of their co-operative societies in the villages … They will be able to solve their problems at home without asking their husbands every time. They will become more educated by going to seminars and workshops when they are coffee owners themselves and members of their co-operatives. They will be able to buy what they want themselves, they will have power, they will have a say."
I ask that, when members buy Cafédirect coffee, tea and drinking chocolate in future, they think of Alivera Kiiza and the women entrepreneurs in Tanzania.
I am grateful to Christine Grahame and Lesley Riddoch for the incredible concept of W8. I am particularly honoured to be linked with Professor Wangari Maathai, who is a truly amazing woman. The list of firsts that she has achieved is an inspiration for women the world over. After winning a Kennedy scholarship to study in America in 1960, she gained a masters degree in biology, became the first woman in east Africa to earn a PhD and then became a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Nairobi.
When she returned to Kenya in 1966, Wangari Maathai was shocked at the degradation of the forests and the farmland that was caused by deforestation, and she decided to solve the problem by planting trees. In 1977, under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya, she introduced the idea of planting trees and called her new organisation the Green Belt Movement.
Wangari Maathai continued to develop the Green Belt Movement into a broad-based grass-roots organisation whose focus was women's groups. Through planting trees, it aimed to conserve the environment and improve women's quality of life. Through the Green Belt Movement, she has assisted women in planting more than 30 million trees on their farms, around schools and in church compounds in Kenya and all over east Africa. In that simple act of planting trees, women have been empowered to own trees, to provide wood and food for their families and to start up small businesses—43,000 of them so far. Seven hundred trees pays for a beehive, a pottery or an oven. Self-sufficiency in wood fuel for communities reduces the huge burden on women and girls, who often had to spend hours covering many miles searching for wood, yet unable to carry home their daily requirements.
The guiding principles of the Green Belt Movement are valuing volunteering, environmental conservation, proaction for self-betterment, accountability, transparency and empowerment. The movement's mission is to mobilise community consciousness and self-determination. Equity, improved livelihoods, security and environmental conservation can all come from planting trees. Oh, that the G8 leaders would listen and learn.
Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement is an incredible example of how one person can turn around the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people by empowering others to change their situations. Her road to success was not easy. She was seen to be challenging the Kenyan Government of Daniel arap Moi. She was frequently the target of Government vilification and suffered physical attacks and imprisonment. However, she refused to compromise her belief that the people—as opposed to the corrupt cronies of the Government—were best trusted to look after their natural resources.
In January 2003, Wangari Maathai was elected to Parliament as a member of the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya, of which she is the founder and leader. She holds a post in the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. To cap it all, in 2004 she was the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in recognition of her remarkable achievements. Her challenge today to the African leaders is for them to stop betraying their people through corruption.
Wangari Maathai urges the G8 nations to address the real issues of development, which she likens to an African stool with three legs, on which balances a basin. One leg is peace; another is good governance; and the third is the good management of resources. The basin sitting on the stool is development. The stool might be small and wide, but if it is not resting on all three legs, it will collapse. The G8 leaders should listen and learn.
I congratulate Christine Grahame on securing the debate. I thank Lesley Riddoch for making the W8 happen and for raising our awareness. I stress the importance of the W8—the eight women. It is women who will make the difference in Africa. I am more certain of that now than I have ever been before.
I am shadowing Graça Machel, the former Minister for Education in Mozambique. Mrs Machel worked underground for Mozambique's liberation movement, the front for the liberation of Mozambique—Frelimo—during the country's war for independence from Portugal. Frelimo set up schools in liberated territories and in its training camps in neighbouring Tanzania. During that time—in 1974—Mrs Machel was appointed deputy director of the Frelimo secondary school at Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Later that year, she was appointed State Secretary for Education and Culture at the age of 29, which must have been some feat in a country where women were really not given a place at all.
Graça Machel was passionate about education and the problems of children in the developing world. She has been a major force in increasing literacy and schooling in Mozambique and has spoken up for the rights of children, families and communities from various platforms all over the world. After she came to office, she persuaded the Mozambican Government to devote 12 per cent of the national budget to education, which is a rare feat in Africa. Within five years, illiteracy had been cut by 22 per cent. She also increased the school-going population from 400,000 to 1.6 million—an amazing achievement that provides lessons that all of us can learn.
Graça Machel was Minister for Education until 1989. The following is a quotation by her:
"Yes, you have to go and fly high. But remain African. Be proud of yourself, of being yourself, and give to others of your culture, your tradition, your resources … If Africa is to change in the next decade, we have to win this battle in the minds of our children, because they are the ones who in 20 or 30 years are going to be the leaders of our nations."
I have some general information on the situation of women in Africa that will put the debate in perspective. In 1994, more than 3,000 women came together in Dakar to articulate the African position for the fourth world conference on women, which was held in Beijing the following year. They produced an African platform for action in which they identified their priorities, including: combating the growing poverty of African women; increasing women's access to education and health services, particularly reproductive health services; increasing the involvement of women in the peace process; advancing the legal and human rights of women; highlighting the special concerns of the girl child; and mainstreaming gender issues.
I will focus on health for a moment. A very worrying aspect of the debate is that people in Africa are not getting access to the medical services that they need, while, at the same time, Africa is training nurses and doctors. The Executive is talking to companies such as Care UK Afroc, Netcare Ltd, SA Medics Ltd and Transmedica Ltd, all of which send health workers from Africa to work in our hospitals. The chairman of the British Medical Association has said:
"There are large areas of Africa where there are no health workers of any kind. The countries of the developed world have helped themselves liberally to doctors and nurses from the developing world for very many years."
We have to take note of that and think carefully about our responsibility in that regard. It is time that we ensured that the doctors and nurses do their job over there and that we support them in so doing.
I conclude by addressing education, which, as a teacher, I believe to be an important subject. I also speak for Graça Michel who, as I said, was the Minister for Education in Mozambique. Seventy per cent of African women are illiterate; 70 per cent of those women live in rural areas; and at least 70 per cent of them are farmers. Education for women is vital, but printed information will not reach those women at the moment. Until literacy levels can be built up and improved, we must ensure that the messages on safe sex, birth control and so forth are given through the medium of radio.
Girls are the last to be educated in Africa, even though all the evidence shows that educating girls creates huge changes in their life choices and in the lives of the people around them.
I will finish with a short quote from Desiree Mhango of Malawi:
"If you educate a girl, then you have educated the whole tribe".
I thank Christine Grahame and Lesley Riddoch. Without the pair of them I would not be talking about Lornah Kiplagat, who is a Kenyan, a long-distance runner and a miracle worker.
There are always solutions out there and it is usually the women who provide them. The leaders, who are men, ought to listen to women. I wish that the G8 leaders could have attended the event in the Hub today, even for the short time that I was able to spend there. Lornah Kiplagat gives us one woman's solution to the issues that African women face. Having read about Lornah and others, I am convinced that miracles are working in Africa: I now know that they are working in people like Lornah and her family.
What makes them so different from the majority of people around them? Why does Lornah have the strength to stick to her principles and where does she get it from? Many people in this country find it difficult to speak out; it can be even more difficult to do so in a rural community. Although a great deal of the difference comes down to Lornah's personality, her parents and her husband Peter also have a large part to play in it. When Lornah and her family are compared with the majority of people around them, they are all shown to be extraordinary in their outlook and beliefs.
Her father, although senior in age and in the community, did not insist on her marrying a person not of her choice. He was not swayed by public opinion on that issue or on female circumcision. He believed that his wife should not overwork and insisted that the household chores be split evenly between his sons and daughters, which is unheard of in most of Africa.
Lornah explained in an interview that Kenya is run by women. They get up at 5 am to do the household chores, then they work in the fields, plant maize and wheat, milk the cows, send milk to the co-operatives, make all the food and take care of the animals. Women work seven hours a day. On the other hand, men occasionally help for an hour in the fields at harvest time. Lornah said that as one passes along the road one can see men sitting talking, talking, talking—they just have a good time together—but one never sees women sitting talking because they do not have the time.
Lornah was born to be a runner, despite her cultural background. Her parents were probably surprised, because she gave up a scholarship to study medicine in India in favour of becoming a runner. Naturally, her parents had doubts about that—as most parents in this country would—because they wondered how she could earn a living, but they supported her. However, competing in races meant a trip to the big city of Nairobi without her parents, who did not go as far as doing what parents do here and bus her everywhere. Going to Nairobi was a bit of a nightmare for a country girl and her friend. If they had been men, they would have had an overnight stay in a tented village. Instead, they could only find bushes beside a public toilet, which I assume was a ladies restroom. Despite a night in the open and no breakfast, she qualified for the Kenyan world cross-country team by coming in sixth.
We must praise Lornah's husband, because the pair of them have set up a camp for women, although they also take men if they stick to the rules. Normally, if women mix with male athletes, the men have them wash their shoes, but Lornah ensures that the men do not do that. If they do, they are out the door. In the camp, Lornah thinks about the whole woman. It does not matter whether a woman is a good runner or a bad runner, because when she is in the camp she is taught cookery, bookkeeping and computing to help her start up in business—for example, a shop or a farm—or go on to further studies. Women come into the camp shy and leave assertive and able to ask questions.
Lornah's dream is that in 100 years there will be many camps like hers. If she could add an Olympic gold medal, that would be fine. She would also like to be self-sufficient by growing her own food and to have no financial strings, so that the camp can live without her and her husband. I hope that their wonderful entrepreneurial spirit is infectious enough to encourage our entrepreneurial spirit, so that Scottish companies that are already in Africa put their thinking caps on and help people such as Lornah who would like to improve their energy sources by bringing in solar and wind power because they spend such a lot on electricity.
I was inspired and humbled by Lornah's story and her achievements, and I admire her family so much for their independent spirit and for how they stuck to their principles against all odds in a difficult country and a man's world. I bow to her.
Only a few weeks ago, many of us here took part in the G8 parliamentarians conference in this chamber. The Edinburgh declaration of 7 June that came from that event outlined action points that cover a range of key issues for Africa that the G8 must address. They include the quality and quantity of aid to Africa, reform of the trading system, ways to expand debt relief and ways to address the health burdens on African countries.
Perhaps the greatest of those health burdens is the blight that is HIV/AIDS. That is of particular relevance to Uganda, which is the home country of Winnie Byanyima, the subject of my speech. Not only was Uganda one of the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to experience the devastating impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but it has been one of the few countries in the region to succeed in substantially reducing the number of new infections. Through educating and advocating for women, Winnie Byanyima has played a key role in taking a broad-based approach that has built consensus among Government, religious and civic leaders, community groups, non-governmental organisations and others in determining how to tackle the disease. The World Health Organisation says that the infection rate has halved since 1993, so it can be done, but it is crucial that women are educated, given the power to say no and are protected from rape and gender violence.
I am particularly proud to stand alongside my seven colleagues who are linked to the W8 women and the W8 conference in Edinburgh. I will concentrate on a couple of main issues that I can link to the Ugandan parliamentarian, academic, engineer and women's rights activist, Winnie Byanyima. I draw members' attention to the commitment in the Edinburgh declaration to
"Strengthen partnership with African-led initiatives",
partly by means of "improving governance and accountability", and to the stated aim of promoting
"greater accountability and transparency within government systems."
I whole-heartedly support the first demand in the W8 statement that the legal status of women in Africa must change so that they can own and inherit property. All too often, women in Africa are banned from owning or inheriting property, which means that widows are turned out of their homes or inherited as goods by other members of their husband's family.
Winnie Byanyima has taken on and championed both those issues. Girls are usually the last to be educated in Africa, but with the support of her parents—both of whom were politicians—and surrounded by women's groups, Winnie grew up with a keen interest in education and politics and she succeeded in going on to higher education. Then, with a degree in aeronautical engineering and a prestigious research fellowship to her name, she nonetheless decided to give up that life and join the National Resistance Army, which eventually overthrew the dictatorial regime of Milton Obote in 1986. After that, she played a key role in the peace process negotiations. Since then, she has continued to serve fellow Ugandans as an ambassador and as a three-term parliamentarian and is currently a gender director in the African Union. She has also served on the gender committee of the United Nations Development Group.
Winnie has done her work in the face of consistent persecution and difficulties at home. She is now considering running for Uganda's presidency, because she feels that her people deserve more than they are getting from the Museveni Government. She fought for that Government, but it has overseen the growth of militarism and corruption. Transparency International says that Uganda is the 11th worst example of corruption in the world. For her, that is far from acceptable and it is not what she fought for. She is on a personal mission to liberate Uganda from corruption and a political system that lacks respect for human rights and forbids the existence of political parties.
Her mission is not without personal risk. Her husband, who is a former presidential candidate, was forced into exile after what he alleges was a fraudulent election campaign in 2001. He believes that his life was in danger. Winnie's commitment to tackling corruption meant that she was dismissed from a top position in the movement in 1999 and was charged with sedition in 2001. However, that has not softened her resolve in any way.
She is a feminist whose commitment to women's rights has run throughout her career. She has long understood the importance of property ownership as a means of liberating women from the economic constraints that come with deprivation. Achieving that has been a priority throughout her career, from the setting up of the new Government in Uganda.
She set up the forum for women in democracy, which lobbied successfully in 1998 for a clause in the Land Act 1998 that would allow women to own land. Unfortunately, it became the "lost clause". As she says,
"this is what you get in a male dominated society."
Women own only 7 per cent of land in Uganda. Winnie has campaigned long and hard for equal property rights and championed gender budgeting to address a series of male-biased policies. Those are further examples of her tireless commitment to the promotion of women in Africa.
Many members know the difficulties that come with life as a female politician. However, when we hear the stories of Winnie and the other women whom we have heard about tonight, that puts our lives and the problems that come with our public lives into perspective. Those women are an inspiration to all of us.
I thank Christine Grahame and others for securing the debate and I congratulate Lesley Riddoch on her hard work—not just today—to push women's issues. The courage of the women whom we are discussing knows no bounds—they seek justice, equality and fairness, not only for themselves or other women, but for everyone in their countries. Rightly, a lot has been said about what happens to women in various countries, but we should also salute the courage of those women and others in seeking fairness and equality, not just for women or themselves, but for others in their countries.
Many years ago, I studied what was happening in Ghana and Burkina Faso and was absolutely amazed by the small co-operatives that were springing up there. Ghana has come on in the world, but, unfortunately, Burkina Faso is in as bad a state as it was all those years ago. I was gobsmacked by the amount of work that women did in those areas to create co-operative farms so that they could educate their children—not just their sons, but their daughters, too—whom they had had to send away to get educated. The amazing thing was that when those children, particularly the girls, were educated, they did not want to leave their country; they wanted to stay there to educate others. That says something about women as a whole: they are not selfish, but wish to give something back through education or work. They want to see their communities take something from the hard work that they have put in. That is something from which not just the G8 leaders but leaders of all countries—particularly men—can learn.
Trish Godman is absolutely right that we must ensure that money goes not to dictatorships but to co-operatives in which women are working at grass-roots level and so see what is going on. In my studies, I found that those women worked hard in the co-operatives, which is where the money should be spent—we cannot afford to let it go to dictatorships.
Mary Scanlon said that, although the women work hard, they have no financial independence. That is why it is important that we in the Parliament, the G8 and countries throughout the world ensure that any money that is given in aid goes to people at grass-roots level.
All that might sound negative; we have to consider the positives as well. The eight women who are here today and the others who are taking part in the W8 summit give us hope for the future. The debate is being televised not just in Scotland but throughout the world. We have to ensure that the work does not stop here or when the G8 summit finishes; we have to ensure that the media keep a close eye on what is happening in Africa. I salute the tenacity of the women here tonight and others throughout the world and pledge my support and that of everyone in the Parliament. I am extremely proud that the women are here tonight. I ask them to keep carrying on the good work; we will ensure that the media here do not forget about it.
I congratulate Christine Grahame on securing the debate and all those who have been involved in today's conference. Listening and watching the television and reading the news, we would be forgiven for thinking that Africa is a continent riven by disease, poverty and famine and that Africans are passive people who can do nothing for themselves. I hope that tonight we have in some small way been able to articulate that that is clearly not the case and that, day in and day out, Africans—particularly African women—are challenging the status quo, supporting families and communities and doing more with small amounts of money than their leaders can do with vast sums.
It is my pleasure to be twinned with Grace Githaiga, who is in the gallery tonight—no pressure on me then. I hope that I do her justice, because she is a truly remarkable woman. Grace is an author and broadcaster and has been involved in setting up more than 100 community radio stations, which have up to 250 million listeners. Community broadcasting is absolutely vital in Africa. In places where 70 per cent of women are illiterate, our natural inclination to put things on paper and hand them out is useless. The problem is compounded by the fact that most of those women also live in remote and rural areas where access is difficult.
Community broadcasting can be revolutionary in Africa. It gives people access to a wider region, it is affordable to people in their communities and—this is important for many women—it does not interfere with their household work and day-to-day lives; they can listen as they get on with everything else. It gives communities a voice and mobilises them for development. It enables individuals to articulate their aspirations and it gives them access to information that they otherwise might not have.
Information is vital for development because it will challenge the myths and misconceptions under which many women in Africa live. The simple technology of community radio, enhanced by the use of cellphones, gets around many of the literacy, corruption and censorship problems that women spoke about today and were keen to challenge. Community radio focuses the debate on people being their own agents of change. Profits are ploughed back and any surpluses are used to start other projects at a community level. Perhaps the G8 will realise the importance of community radio and will mainstream it in their planning process.
Grace Githaiga's other passion is cellphones, which are my curse. People who go around Africa will see many people using cellphones and will realise how cellphones have revolutionised that continent. Through using mobile telephones, people can get in touch with their families who live in villages and can get information about and access to health care. Some 70 per cent of all phones in Africa are mobile phones. Mobile phones have even influenced elections, as happened in Kenya in 2002—they can be used to encourage people to vote and they can secure candidates' safety.
Mobile phones are also a way of transferring money—families can pay for mobile phone credit and therefore support people. In Africa, more money is put into the economy by Africans who send money home than is put into it as a result of aid, but companies such as Thomas Cook and Western Union charge 12 per cent for sending money back. Mobile phone operators think that they can process credit transfers at a rate of 4 per cent. If they can, they should get on with it and do so. More money will then reach those who need it.
Today, Grace Githaiga was asked for her key messages. I will repeat her thoughts. The process of engagement must involve communities, including women affected by poverty, who will ultimately demand pro-poor and pro-people policies and governance from their Governments. Communities must participate in their own affairs through accessing and disseminating strategic and timely information.
Grace also said that community radio brings social benefits. The heart and soul of social change in women's lives requires them to have skills and resources and requires institutional change. Community radio can bring many such benefits and can focus on practical steps for improvement.
Essentially, we must remove barriers to fair trade. Women are primary producers and so suffer most from the lack of trade opportunities. Protectionist trade policies and artificially supported markets disproportionately disadvantage the poor. Trade breaks dependency and poverty cannot be reduced without economic growth.
Finally, we must invest in the continent's communications infrastructure and in energy-friendly technologies. Africa is now a business story and a business destination. The time to act is now.
The eight women of W8 bring much to the table. They have many practical and achievable ideas and strong views on tackling corruption and leading their nations. I am proud to have taken part in the debate and hope that the eight men at the G8 summit will take the views of the women seriously. I hope that they will realise that we cannot impose solutions on Africa and that we must take Africa—and African women in particular—with us. I hope that this is the beginning of a long and sustained friendship with the eight women. There is much that we parliamentarians can do with them. This is the beginning and not the end of a process.
On behalf of the Executive, I, too, congratulate Christine Grahame on securing the debate. I also congratulate all the women who have participated in it—the fact that it involved only women is probably another first that we must chalk up for our relatively new Parliament. It has probably been one of the best debates that we have had so far.
Like other members, I thank Lesley Riddoch for coming up with the idea of the conference and for bringing it to Edinburgh at what I hope will be an important and memorable time.
Members have alluded to the fact that although women around the globe have an enormous impact on the well-being of their families and the societies in which they live, their potential is often not realised. Their status may have improved in recent decades, but gender inequalities remain pervasive.
Women constitute half of the world's population and perform nearly two thirds of its work, yet they earn only a tenth of its income and own less than 1 per cent of its property. We, in the Scottish Parliament, know the difference that almost 40 per cent of our members being women has made, whether in raising awareness of issues such as domestic abuse or in ensuring that equality issues have been recognised when we have passed legislation on local government and housing. Trish Godman is correct to say that getting women into positions of power and influence must be one of our goals. In that respect, we must remember that we have much to learn. In preparing for this debate and for the speeches this morning, I discovered that 49 per cent of the parliamentarians in Rwanda are women, so we do not always lead the way.
The importance of giving women power and influence has been made clear in the debate. In its many recommendations, the Commission for Africa report mentions the fact that women account for some 70 per cent of food production. They prepare the food, gather the firewood and fetch the water. They also carry out most of the child care and care for the sick and the elderly, yet they have fewer opportunities to generate income and are often subjected to harassment and violence.
Scots have long recognised that education is a way to self-fulfilment and a route out of poverty, and the UN development goals concentrate on education—especially the need to educate women. In sub-Saharan Africa, 19 countries have female literacy rates of below 30 per cent, and less than half of six to 11-year-old girls are estimated to be in school. It is thought that, in some areas, female illiteracy can be as high as 90 per cent, yet studies show that getting girls into school is crucial for development. Through educating girls, economic productivity is raised; infant and maternal mortality rates are lowered; nutrition and health are improved; and the spread of HIV is reduced.
Providing girls with one extra year of education boosts their eventual wages by 10 to 20 per cent, and a strong investment is then made in the education of the next generation. The removal of school fees would help girls, in particular, as poor parents often choose to educate their sons first. Free school meals and school attendance grants would also help. We know, from statistics, that the removal of school fees in Uganda almost doubled the number of very poor women in education there.
The G8 summit has given us a new awareness of the issue, but it is not only the members of the Scottish Parliament who are focusing on Africa: others throughout Scotland are doing so, too. On Monday, I visited Albert Primary School, in Airdrie, where the pupils were joined by their colleagues from Clarkston Primary School. They have been involved in a scheme that has been going on throughout Scotland, whereby children have made small representations of their friends in Africa. These buddies, as they are called—and I have several hundred of them, if anyone wants to see them—will make their way to the G8 leaders, and there is a very simple message on the back of every one: "Please send my friend to school."
In the six years since devolution in Scotland, the Government here has worked hard to raise our international profile for the benefit of the Scottish people. It is now time for us to accept our responsibility to participate in a worldwide effort to close the gulf between rich and developing countries. We hope that our efforts will encourage other countries and, especially, the leaders of the G8, to do the same.
Meeting closed at 17:54.