World Bank Ministerial meeting (2)
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Thank you for your message, which gives us the flavour of what is on
the agenda of the World Bank for the 21st century. I would like to
raise a few issues.
I am very surprised about the number of ministries attending that
meeting. Also, almost all of them are former English colonies. Does
this mean that the other countries are doing better or they are not
part of Sub Saharan Africa. Could you, please, give us more informa-
tion about this?
The way the problem of gender is treated does not seem to me the best
one. The issue of gender inequality has to be taken in a general ap-
proach starting from the education of both gender (boys and girls).
The percentage of girls attending school is low because their parents
still believed that it is not cost-effective to do so. It is the par-
ents who arranged the early marriage of girls and so on. Therefore,
we should accept for now some transitory solutions to reduce the gap
between gender. The radical solution should be the education for all
as a compulsory task for all African governments. It does not matter
how many women are in the parliament or in the government nowadays.
Once there will be as much women as men or at least when a critical
threshold will be crossed, the actual situation will change.
Why women have to fetch water or carry fuel wood from a long dis-
tance? Because there is no drinking water in the village. The list
could be long. As a concluding point, every government should allow
every child to attend school. This will save the next generation of
girls to be in the same situation like their mother or senior sister.
This are just some points that I would to share with you....
Omer A. Mensah
Research Student
Health Policy Unit
Lodon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Keppel Street
London, WC1E 7HT
Tel: +44-207-927-2284 (Office)
Tel: +44-207-813-2825 (Home)
Fax: +44-207-637-5391
mailto:o.mensah@lshtm.ac.uk
or
mailto:mensmer@syfed.bj.refer.org
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