Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-17-Speech-3-313"
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"en.20031217.11.3-313"2
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"Mr President, the efficiency of development aid remains a problem.
Moreover, it is a fact that misplaced feelings of guilt about our colonial past have made discussion of this problem taboo, a taboo in which, fortunately, cracks are starting to appear.
An increasing number of observers, and those involved at the sharp end, take a critical view of the way in which development aid is generally organised. The resources used often do not reach their destination.
Simply donating money is, moreover, not always the answer. Quite the opposite, there are other factors that help determine success. I am thinking, for example, of the presence of a free market economy and of freedom full stop.
Gender equality, the topic of this report, is a very important element in this. It is stated, with good reason, that discrimination against women forms a barrier to sustainable and effective development.
So it is indeed the case that we should concentrate on better education, training and participation, both economically and politically speaking. In this respect, the Commission provides for
‘support in terms of the analysis and improvement of statistics according to gender, age, development and distribution of methodologies, guidelines, gender impact reports, thematic studies, indicators and other operational instruments’.
This is all undoubtedly useful and necessary, but we should ensure that we do not lose sight of a number of essential facts. Many developing countries are being plagued by archaic cultural patterns to which the disadvantaged position of women is directly attributable. In that respect, it is astonishing that neither the Zrihen report, nor the Commission’s own, should make any reference to Islam at all. In the Islamic world, women are, as it were, structurally inferior, and it makes no sense whatsoever to tiptoe around this unpleasant fact. As long as people refuse to accept this, this regulation will at best be a source of employment for gender experts and other development workers from Europe, but nothing more than that."@en1
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