Interview with Ines Alberdi, executive director of UNIFEM
ROME, Aug 28 (IPS) – Ines Alberdi has worked for over 25 years on gender issues and in politics.
She comes to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) from her previous position as professor of sociology at Madrid University where she has taught political sociology and sociology of gender since 1993. Prior to that, she was director for research at the Centre for Sociological Research. Her main interest has been gender-based violence.
“It is crucial to see the women’s rights movement in this context of creating more democratic, equitable, and just societies that benefit the population as a whole. And I devoted my professional life to this cause,” she says.
Alberdi spoke to IPS Editor in Chief Miren Gutierrez about the role of UNIFEM.
IPS: UNIFEM talks about the importance of incorporating gender into national poverty reduction strategies. How is this done?
Ines Alberdi: National poverty reduction strategies are particularly important entry points to ensure that women’s needs will be taken into account. It is based on these plans that governments allocate resources and donors contribute to national budgets or to specific sectors. To have a strong gender perspective incorporated at this planning stage is therefore crucial.
Gender advocates and women’s machineries must therefore be closely involved in devising national development plans. UNIFEM’s work has focused on opening policy spaces, for example in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries. As Kyrgyzstan began formulating its new development strategy, UNIFEM worked with civil society organisations to raise the profile of gender equality measures. These encompass measures to increase women’s political participation, perform gender analysis of school curricula, reflect gender differences in pension reform and end violence against women.
Kyrgyzstan has also pioneered a set of gender-responsive development indicators, harmonised to capture both national priorities and international commitments to gender equality, such as those in the Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) and the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).
