Statement by the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (April 2008)

The global economy is in mayhem as credit woes and rising food prices simultaneously release shockwaves across countries. No matter how hard neo-liberal economists downplay the crisis there is now a growing consensus that piecemeal policies and mere tinkering at the edges of what is serious systemic crisis cannot work.

The chaos in global markets is a reflection of long-term structural and cyclical problems whose harshest effects are felt in the households of ordinary people, especially the poor in both developing and developed economies. Transnational corporations and the wealthy are better endowed to bear the risks, face the uncertainties, and ride the volatilities and will once again survive the crises. But the poor will once again bear the fallout of market failure. And poor women will all continue to the shock absorbers to failed economic and social policies. Both in rich and poor countries alike poor women are the overworked, undernourished, and disempowered default providers of care and survival.

Women cannot continue to help to sustain an economic system that is content with band aiding failed financial and product market apparatus that only results in rampant accumulation and greed. Undeniably, such economic system thrives on the expectation – as a matter of neo-liberal obligation – that women will expend care labor without adequate resources, recognition, nor security to shore up financial, economic and social crises. Globally, individual rights and capabilities are being (trampled on) as inequities worsen. The system of rapid wealth and asset accumulation in economic globalization is unsustainable.

The triad of UNCTAD, UNHRC and the ECOSOC-DCF/FFD must be strengthened as a counterbalance to the WTO-IMF-WB-OECD and myriad regional and bilateral trade agreements, which follow neo-liberal economic policies.

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