Notes From Clinton Global Initiative Opening Session On Women

Former President Bill Clinton today kicked off the Clinton Global Initiative Plenary Session on Women. He entered to Also sprach Zarathustra, the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. He started by giving some facts and figures about Sub-Saharan Africa and HIV, saying that getting HIV is like walking along and then suddenly having a concrete block dropped on you. He said these girls and young women are the best ambassadors because even though they have been sexually abused they refuse to live their lives as victims.

Clinton said that women do 66% of world’s work, but they produce 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property. 40% of the three billion people who work are women and 70% of agricultural labor is performed by women, but women lack independence. He also said that investing in women’s health could increase productivity in Africa by fifteen billion dollars per year.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a commitment to Rwanda and talked about how women have been active there. Bloomberg said he is involved in Southern Sudan and Congo, working with an organization called Women for Women. It is an attempt to get women to contribute to their countries.

President Barack Obama’s Ambassador At-Large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, said that empowering women combats extremism.

Ambassador Robert Zoellick said that he is trying to help with the Adolescent Girls Initiative, an organization that hopes to work with 3,000 girls and mentor them to make sure that education is connected to a job.

Zainab Salbi talked about wars and children. She said 80% of refugees in the world are women and children. Even after rape these women succeed because they have children. They are the ones who are keeping the children going to school. The only group of people who are keeping a society going are women, and they do not have a seat at the table and they are not being heard.

Rex Tillerson from Exxon Mobil talked about technologies. He said low technologies can impact on a local level. He said they are working on what types of technologies work.

Edna Ismail was the first nurse practitioner in Somalia. She said they do not even need advanced technology. The age that a woman marries and nutrition are important to overall health. Genital cutting information is not reaching the grandmothers and people who have kept this tradition. Senegal has passed a law outlawing this, but a law does not change behavior on a village level.

Diane Sawyer asked what the biggest failure was, and Zainab Salbi asked said it was a challenge. But girls at the age of nine get cows as a dowry. She said you must be able to educate women so that there is incentive for women to be educated so they are more valuable to the family than cows.

There are a million young women in the sex trade. The United States passed one of the first laws to prevent human trafficking. It is hopeful because the business community is getting involved. One cent of every development dollar goes to girls.

Some programs make the payments directly to women, such as incentives to go to school. Must turn incentives so that the legal structure reflects the situation.