NEPAD's vision: NEPAD commits African governments to the empowerment of women, to be demonstrated by an increase in income earning power, as a share of professional and managerial jobs, and as a share of parliamentary seats held by women. Where major gender discrepancies exist in life expectancy data, we consider that a key empowerment indicator will be the narrowing of those discrepancies.
NEPAD's failures: We note with regret, however, that NEPAD is lacking in details regarding gender empowerment, and the failure to endorse existing African-initiated action plans, standards and goals - including those of the Africa platform of the 1994 Beijing women's conference - is glaring.
US responsibility: To support these aspirations for gender equality, we note the following indicators for US policy:
- The US government will give high priority to development assistance programs, especially through the African Development Foundation, that empower women and support grassroots initiatives.
- The US government will seek to address, through development assistance, educational opportunities for girls.
- The US government will respect the women-led African initiatives and decisions on issues of family planning, birth control and HIV/AIDS prevention programs.
- The US government will support United Nations efforts to advance the rights, skills and leadership of women.
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