Club de Madrid stresses women’s rights

Eugene Yun (left), managing director of the P80 Group Foundation, and Carlos Westendorp, secretary-general of the Club de Madrid, sign the Little Rock Accord on Monday afternoon on the steps of the Old Statehouse. Supporters of the accord hope to persuade government-owned investment funds and other financial funds to back “sustainable growth” that is environmentally sensitive.
Eugene Yun (left), managing director of the P80 Group Foundation, and Carlos Westendorp, secretary-general of the Club de Madrid, sign the Little Rock Accord on Monday afternoon on the steps of the Old Statehouse. Supporters of the accord hope to persuade government-owned investment funds and other financial funds to back “sustainable growth” that is environmentally sensitive.

— More than 30 former world leaders from every continent gathered Monday in Little Rock, vowing to use their clout to bolster women’s rights around the globe.

Club de Madrid, an independent, nonprofit composed of 93 democratically elected former presidents and prime ministers from 62 countries, also announced plans to seek closer ties with Asia, a region that has been underrepresented in its ranks, and speed investment in sustainable initiatives to deal with climate change.

The group chose Little Rock for its annual conference because one of its members is former President Bill Clinton, who moderated a panel on women’s rights that included former Irish President Mary Robinson, former Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayeva, former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano.

Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, appeared briefly in a video, welcoming the group to Arkansas. Hillary Clinton, recovering from a concussion suffered in a fall, was a frequent reference point for continued political ascendance of women.

Former Bolivian President Jorge Quiroga said women have achieved the presidency in Brazil, Chile, Panama,Costa Rica and Argentina.

“If someone had predicted 20 years ago in Latin America, the macho-man land, you would have Brazil being run by a woman ... it’s a dramatic change. I don’t want to make predictions here in the U.S .,but maybe in 2016 something will happen along those lines,” Quiroga said.

Bill Clinton said concrete proposals, not more rhetoric, were key to improving the lives of women around the world.

“We cannot get into the position where we have these meetings just telling people to stop doing bad things. We have to paint a picture of all the good things that will happen if we’re going to include women in power,” Clinton said.

Chissano, Mozambique’s president from 1986-2005, said that cultural attitudes toward Mozambican women changed substantially in his country’s war of independence against Portugal in the 1960s and ’70s as women fought alongside men and trained military recruits.

Often, Clinton said, men need to see women perform competently in powerful positions in order to accept them as equals.

Robinson and Otunbayeva agreed that quotas were necessary in many countries to guarantee enough power for women.

“The idea of a critical mass is very important,” said Robinson, Ireland’s president from 1990 to 1997. “When we got critical mass, things began to change.”

Earlier Monday, the group announced two partnerships. An agreement with the World Economic Forum, a group seeking to engage politicians and the business community, will seek to strengthen ties with Asia. Another seeks to tackle climate change.

Club de Madrid President Wim Kok, the Dutch prime minister from 1994 to 2002, said the group doesn’t have as many Asian members for “historical” reasons, but recognizes the growing power of the region.

Quiroga added that the significance of the Asian partnership is that it originated outside the United States and was being driven by non-American players.

“It’s a sign of the changing times,” said Quiroga, Bolivia’s president from 2001 to 2002.

The climate-change agreement - called The Little Rock Accord - formalized an agreement between the Club de Madrid and the P80 Group Foundation, a group of some of the world’s largest pension funds, that seeks to earmark 2 percent of “trillions of dollars” to combat climate change, said Eugene Yun, managing director of the P80 Group Foundation.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/18/2012

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