Government policy responses to the global financial meltdown must focus on the role of women as economic agents in order to address the all-too-familiar trend of women and girls suffering disproportionately during times of economic crisis, speakers told the Commission on the Status of Women this afternoon as it held an expert panel discussion on the gender perspectives of the crisis.

Mayra Buvinic, Senior Spokesperson on Gender Equality and Development of the World Bank, said ignoring the crisis’ gender-specific impacts ‑‑ such as the expected drop in women’s income and girls’ school enrolment and the rise in mortality rates among infant girls ‑‑ would increase poverty and imperil future development. Evidence showed that the loss of women’s income more adversely affected children and caused generations of families to remain in the poverty trap than the loss of men’s earnings. As banking institutions cut microfinance lending, millions of women-run enterprises, the main beneficiaries of microcredit, would lose their livelihoods, and as the demand for exports dropped, women in export-oriented industries around the world would lose their jobs.

Allowing women to disproportionately shoulder the economic burden did not bode well for the global economy, she said, stressing that it was simply smart economics to invest in women’s earning power and women’s pay checks in times of crisis. The World Bank’s “gender equality as smart economics” action plan would aim to do just that, working to ensure jobs and microfinance loans for women. Additionally, the World Bank had launched a $900 million food crisis response fund, and the International Finance Corporation and the German Government had put together a $500 million facility for microfinancing institutions. The role of women in pulling countries out of economic peril was vital, she said, noting that countries worldwide had coped with previous crises by putting more women into the workplace. That was true, for example, during the Great Depression in the United States and the Latin American crisis of the 1990s.

In a similar vein, Elizabeth Eilor, an independent gender equality and macroeconomic policy consultant and Vice-President of Least Developed Countries Watch (LDC Watch), an international civil society network, said the drop in official development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct investment in Africa due to the crisis would result in massive job losses for women, particularly in the informal economy, and cuts in health care and education services, both large beneficiaries of external funding. As commodity and food prices rose, women would find it increasingly difficult to put food on the table. Their situation would be made more difficult, owing to the interdependence of African policies that were not responsive to the care economy. Moreover, without the steady injection of capital into much-needed social services, countries across Africa would not be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

A more thorough gender analysis to see how development policies could better respond to the needs of women and men was needed, she said, stressing that “women and girls in poverty are not asking for new rhetoric or promises. They want action that will bring them economic empowerment, respect for their rights and the role in development.” Countries must work to enhance women’s productive capacities, including in such areas as renewable energy, to create more wealth, support income-generating activities and reduce workloads. Women had benefited from management credit programmes in Malawi and economic recovery credit schemes in Rwanda. Ending global poverty began with women, and all stakeholders had a role to play in women’s empowerment, she said, noting that “when you teach a woman to fish, everyone eats”.

During the morning, the Commission continued its general debate. As in the panellists’ exchanges this afternoon, there was widespread agreement among delegations on the need for Government intervention to ensure women’s well-being during the economic crisis. Elena Guergis, Minister of State of Canada, for example, said her Government was forming alliances with the private and non-profit sectors to ensure that women contributed to economic growth and benefited from equal opportunity measures in the labour market. The aim was to ensure economic security and increase women in leadership roles. Canadian women were increasingly participating in the paid workforce, but they still faced imbalance in unpaid work. Federal programmes aimed to rectify that in several ways, among them by supporting unpaid caregivers through a universal childcare plan and tax credits.

Also participating in that discussion were senior ministers of Kiribati, Botswana, Greece, and the Philippines, as well as the Executive Director of the Bureau of Women’s Affairs of Jamaica.