When Foreign Policy compiled its list of 25 of the most powerful but least known women in the world for our May/June issue, Helen Clark was a natural pick. A three-term prime minister of New Zealand, she stepped onto the international stage in 2009, when she became administrator of the United Nations Development Program. As the first woman at the helm of the UNDP, she oversees the organization's 8,000-plus employees working in 177 countries to fight poverty and corruption and support vital welfare, health, and environmental programs.
On a visit this past weekend to Washington, D.C., where she attended the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings, Clark sat down with Foreign Policy to talk about women's issues in developing countries -- with an eye toward the new governments in several Arab states -- and whether the UNDP is on track to meet its eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015. She also explained why, when it comes to fighting poverty, countries like India and Mexico are getting it right. Despite a dizzying schedule of travel and meetings, Clark says that when her four-year term as administrator ends next spring, "chances are I'll be saying, ‘Well, my work's not done, and I'd love to carry on.'"
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Foreign Policy: One of the themes that emerged in the newest issue of Foreign Policy is that women's issues are inseparable from development issues generally. Is that something that's consciously part of the UNDP's philosophy?
Helen Clark: Empowering women and upholding women's rights is part of our mandate, and we start from the assumption that women have equal rights to human rights, and that in terms of development a country will always sell itself short when it's not opening up opportunity for women. If you're going to systematically exclude half your population from development progress, you're never going to be what you could be. So there's both the human rights issues -- that women are entitled to equal rights -- and then also the issue that women being able to exercise equal rights and have access to opportunity of course will not only be empowered themselves, which is good for women as individuals, but they will [also] help propel their country forward. And there's plenty of evidence now ... that the more education a women has, not only the better her own life prospects -- delaying the age of marriage, better spacing of her children for her own health -- but her children themselves will be healthier and have higher aspirations. So any investment you make in women will have multiplier effects. It's one of the most effective investments you can make anywhere.
FP: And a couple of the UNDP Millennium Development Goals specifically address women's issues.
Clark: Correct. [There is] MDG 3, which deals with a target for representation in legislatures of 30 percent. And a lot of developing countries have been very creative with the use of quotas and other measures to get there. Rwanda's a very, very interesting case with 56 percent of the MPs who are women. Burundi also -- there's so many examples that are really quite exciting. And that goal also deals with gender parity in education. We're reasonably close to gender parity in primary education, but secondary -- no. So there's work to do.
And then there's the MDG 5 on maternal health and access to sexual reproductive health services, and that one is struggling a lot, which speaks to the relative lack of status of women in communities, that these issues haven't been given top priority.
FP: Are you optimistic that about meeting those goals by the target year, 2015?
Clark: MDG 5 is very, very tough, because it called for a three-quarters reduction in maternal mortality between the 1990 baseline figure and 2015. I don't think that will be met. Universal access to sexual reproductive health services -- no, won't be met. But they're very, very critical goals. So whatever happens after 2015, these issues have to continue to have priority.
FP: On the question of women in politics, you said the goal was about 30 percent representation in parliaments, and I think it's about 20 percent right now.
Clark: Yes, it hovers around there. It's inched up slowly. When I first made speeches coming here it was under 18. We're now talking around 20. But it's slow.
FP: Why, from the UNDP's perspective, is it important that women are represented in parliaments?
Clark: You come back to the same two issues. There's an equal right to be represented per gender. But there's also the issues that if you are out of sight, you're out of mind. The issues that women need addressed to advance their own and their families' status and needs are not addressed unless women's voices are there. I saw from the perspective of my own country that it wasn't until there was a critical mass of women that you could really move ahead on a number of issues. Because otherwise it's just, "Oh, there's so-and-so again, and they're going on about early education or whatever." You have to have a critical mass of women to be advocating for the case. And then they have to work with the men in the parliament to get them on board. And when the critical mass is attained, you see quite interesting examples of legislation.
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