Women: A force to eradicate hunger and poverty.

摘要

World hunger has been a chronic and unrelenting problem for ages. Furthermore, there has been virtually no progress in eradicating hunger globally since the UN adopted eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the 2000 Millennium Summit. The first of these goals is to halve world hunger by 2015. Unfortunately, high food prices pushed an additional 115 million people into hunger in 2007-2008. This brings the total number of people living with hunger in the world to 963 million, 17 percent of humanity.;Using a basic cross-country regression model, this dissertation investigates the effect of gender equality in education, employment and political representation on the eradication of hunger and in promoting economic growth. Amazing progress has been made in female literacy and education. The regression findings show that increased female literacy has a substantive and significant impact on reducing hunger. The second MDG of achieving universal primary education has almost been reached. Regression findings further indicate that female formal sector employment has an even greater impact than female literacy in eradicating hunger.;Expanded literacy and education have limited value if no opportunities yet exist to apply that knowledge to improve livelihoods. The formal sector is largely absent in many developing countries and there have been no efforts to expand women's access to formal sector employment. An alarming current trend is for women's employment to move from formal to informal. There has been a decline in formal sector employment opportunities for women in all the developing regions. Labor market discrimination and inequality in employment have prevented women from contributing more extensively to the eradication of hunger and income growth.;One of the most remarkable political developments during the past decade has been women's increased political representation. Women parliamentarians almost doubled in all regions. Although women's parliamentary representation failed to show any effect in reducing hunger, it did indicate an impact in increasing income growth and public spending on health care and education. Women in parliament are altering the very nature of politics and are making enduring gains for themselves and there is hope that gender equality in employment, might best be achieved through women's increased political representation.