Noeleen Heyzer, Honoree | 2005 Women Who Make a Difference Awards Dinner

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2005 Women Who Make a Difference
Awards Dinner
March 1, 2005

Click here for awards ceremony information.
Click here for the afternoon program.

Honoree Profile and Remarks
Click here for the list of all 2005 honorees.

Noeleen Heyzer, Ph.D.
Executive Director, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Noeleen Heyzer is the first executive director from the South to head the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the leading operational agency within the United Nations to promote women's empowerment and gender equality. Since joining UNIFEM, Ms. Heyzer has worked on strengthening women's economic security and rights in the context of feminized poverty and globalization; promoting women's leadership in conflict resolution, peace-building and reconstruction; ending violence against women; and combating HIV/AIDS from a gender perspective.

Previously, Ms. Heyzer was the policy adviser to Asian governments and was instrumental in the formulation of national development policies, strategies and programmes from a gender perspective. In 1994-95 she played a key role in the preparatory process for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, including organizing 1000 NGOs in the Asia Pacific region to develop the first ever NGO Action Plan.

Ms. Heyzer has been a founding member of numerous regional and international women's networks and has published extensively on gender and development issues, especially economic globalization, international migration and trafficking, gender and trade, and women, peace and security. Born in Singapore, she received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Singapore and a doctorate in social sciences from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. She has received several awards for leadership including the UNA-Harvard Leadership Award, the Woman of Distinction Award from the UN-NGO Committee on the Status of Women and the Dag Hammarksjold medal in 2004.

Noeleen Heyzer's Remarks

It's a very great honor for me to be here with all of you. And thank you, Linda, for the award and to the organization NCRW. But I want to say that for every leader, there are lots of women leaders behind her. And I just want to recognize all the people in my organization who are here tonight and without whose help the work of this organization would never happen.

I just want to say that, two nights ago, because we were preparing for the ten-year review of the Fourth World Conference of Women - my staff members, what we call our field offices, came to New York. And they began to share stories.

I just wanted to share with you two stories of two national staff, and not even national staff. One, by the name of Basma. She is an Iraqi and we used to get emails from her, telling us how difficult and how dangerous it is to work in Iraq. But she was the one who organized all the women, to prepare them for the vote.

And when everyone who went to Iraq said to me - she didn't only keep the face of UNIFEM alive, but she kept the face of the U.N. alive in Iraq. It was one woman, organizing 450 women in the communities and their networks, and making sure that their dream was kept alive.

And she said to me - we were so proud because we never thought that there would come a day when we could vote against all the dangers that were before us. And she said, on the day of the voting there were two lines. Women were in one line and men were on another line.

And what UNIFEM did before was to train the women that they understood what it meant to vote. Many of them ran as candidates, as leaders, they were the ones also who overthrew some of the resolutions that were coming, in terms of the sharia, during the time of the transition.

And these women were lining up to vote. And suddenly, one of them ran across to the male line. And she was horrified. She said - we didn't teach her that; what is she doing?

Then it turned out that her husband was on the other line, and he was fainting. So she ran across and said to other men, "Take care of him, I have to vote." Today, although there was a quota of 25 percent women in the national assembly, they - because of all this training - managed to get 31 percent of women in.

Anther story came from my national program officer, from Afghanistan. And I was in Kabul several years ago and I met her and I immediately asked her to work for the organization. Because one of the things we do is to identify local leaders and empower them and make sure that the U.N. recognizes them and provides them with the space to make a difference in their communities and in the shaping of their societies.

So she and her team, what they did was they were the ones who helped to register the women as voters. And what they were able to achieve - again, against all odds - was the fact that for the first time, the constitution of Afghanistan has an article that recognizes women as full citizens. To us, it may not be a big deal, but to the women of Afghanistan, after the Taliban, that is a big deal.

And these are the kinds of stories, the kind of difference that we hear from the ground in terms of what UNIFEM is doing. But equally important was a story that also came out of Rwanda, and many of you have seen "Hotel Rwanda." But I want to tell you, the women with whom I work, do not have the money; they do not own hotels, but they have made a tremendous difference in terms of making sure that the communities live and are able to accept the differences that are so important in shaping our common future.

In fact, we went in at the time just immediately after the genocide. And immediately, my team felt very quickly that what was important was the revitalization of the rural sector, the agricultural sector. Because until that sector was working, people were not getting food.

At the same time there were no national or local economies to integrate the combatants, making sure that people had a future. But they knew that the agricultural sector was not going to be vitalized if women did not own land. So the first thing they did was that they worked to change the laws.

And land ownership was changed and immediately, women went back to the farm to start farming again. And again, those are the kinds of differences that we make at the ground level.

I tell these stories because the work of UNIFEM is one that is rooted on the ground; but we use the power of the multilateral system, and the power of money to make the differences that are so necessary. We work extremely hard, first of all, to change laws. And I'm very happy to tell you that in 40 countries last year, we were able to track the kinds of changes we have made in laws.

Not only in terms of land rights, but also in terms of personal security, in terms of family codes, like the case in Morocco. The case of protection of migrant workers. But these laws have got to be implemented, and we have to make sure that we have the right institutions to implement them.

And therefore, the work on transforming institutions, so that they understand that; and that they have the culture of understanding the whole issue of women's human rights. The work on ending violence against women has been a big challenge.

We have managed again to change laws in 45 countries on domestic violence. But more important, really capturing, security council, and to change the peace process everywhere in the world; and the way in which post-conflict rebuilding gets done.

And here, I must say that the mobilization of women from the ground, from the conflict zones, to meet members of the security council; coming up with what is now called the Landmark Resolution on Women's Peace and Security - has changed the world of peacekeeping and of peace operation.

For the first time, we have defined what security means. And it's no longer militarized. Security is no longer security based on what I call weapon-based security - but human security. And increasingly, the message, the difference that we make and the difference that we have been able to make is to link the issue of security to development and to rights. It's only when everywhere we have development, peace and security - can there be a secure world for all.

I just want to end by saying that you did ask - what inspired me to do this work? I just feel that this is such a beautiful world and it really, really deserves the best of the human spirit. And one of the things that I've tried to do in my life is to look for the light and the best in human beings, and to make sure that all of that light becomes the leadership for the world. So I thank you for this opportunity to share.