Hillary Clinton: Liberate the economic potential of rural women to fight hunger and poverty

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been speaking out about gender equality in the international arena since at least 1995, when she delivered a forceful message on women’s rights as human rights at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. So it was no surprise that the rights of rural women figured prominently in her remarks last week at the Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security.

Webcast image of Hillary Clinton speaking at 18 May
symposium in Washington, DC.

Organized by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and held in Washington, DC, the symposium preceded this year’s G8 summit of world leaders. It provided a forum for high-level discussions of sustainable agricultural development and the setting for President Barack Obama’s announcement of a G8 initiative – the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition – which aims to reduce hunger and lift 50 million rural people out of poverty in the next decade. 

Secretary Clinton’s speech at the event covered a range of issues on investing in global agriculture to solve the problems of malnutrition and extreme poverty. Perhaps its most passionate section dealt with the largely untapped potential of rural women to help feed the world, a topic that is also central to IFAD’s recently adopted gender policy. Excerpts from the Clinton speech follow.


I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that I am convinced women are critical to our success in every field of endeavour. And this is not a matter of sentiment or personal interest on my part. This is also actually a fact-based, evidence-based statement. It has been said that the modern face of hunger is often a woman’s face, because in many parts of the world, women still eat last and eat least.

The face of a farmer is often a woman’s face as well. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, women comprise nearly half of the agricultural workforce across Africa. So if we want to support farmers, we also have to support women farmers. And that is not something that happens automatically. It has to be part of a deliberate, determined strategy that takes gender equality into account across everything we are doing.

And the results speak for themselves. The FAO estimates that if women farmers had the same access to productive resources as men – seeds, credit, insurance, land title, and so on – they could increase yields on their farms by 20 to 30 per cent. And that, in turn, could raise total agricultural output so much it could reduce the number of hungry people worldwide by up to 150 million.

Now the obstacles that stand in the way of women’s equal access to resources in agriculture or anything else are, unfortunately, formidable. They include laws, deeply held traditions, lack of information, plain old inertia, and we have to overcome each and every one of them. We can’t just hope that women get the support they need as a side effect of our work. We have to push for it. And it’s not optional. It’s not marginal. It’s not a luxury. It’s not expendable. It happens to be essential, or we will never reach our goals….

When we liberate the economic potential of women, we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations and the world.

Scenes from the 2008 Democratic Inquisition

And the verdict is handed down by the Inquisitor Generalis, Abe Torquemada Foxman:

"He was very clear," said Abraham Foxman, the ADL's national director, describing the response of [Illinois Senator Barack Obama] who was asked in a debate Tuesday about the public praise he received over the weekend from the Nation of Islam leader.

"He distanced himself and condemned it and rejected it," Foxman said. "What more do we want? On that issue we should move on."

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2008022720080227obamafarrakhandebate.html

Indeed, Obama was very clear, and Hillary as well. When have you ever heard either of these characters speak so clearly on any issue?

Now you know how to succeed in "U.S." politics.

Utterly shameful.

War in Iran a Laughing Matter for Zionist Hillary

I have a bad feeling that this psychopath, Hillary Clinton is the Zionists' pick for U.S. President.



Seymour Hersh says that Zionist cash accounts for Hillary's mocking smugness:

... AMY GOODMAN: Sy Hersh, I wanted to switch gears for the last question, and this has to do with it not just being Republicans who are sounding a drumbeat for war. The three leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards -- have all declared no options off the table. This is a clip from last week’s Democratic debate. It was the day the Senate approved a controversial resolution calling on the State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. At the debate, Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel bitterly criticized Hillary Clinton for voting in favor.

MIKE GRAVEL: This is fantasy land. We're talking about ending the war. My god, we’re just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today. Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has authored another resolution, and it is essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran. And I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against it, and I’m ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You're not going to get another shot at this, because what’s happened, if this war ensues, we invade, and they're looking for an excuse to do it. And Obama was not even there to vote.

TIM RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I want to give you a chance to respond.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: [laughter]

AMY GOODMAN: That was Hillary Clinton laughing. Fifteen seconds, Seymour Hersh. Your response?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Money. A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let's not kid about it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat. And I think it’s as simple as that. When you’re from New York and from New York City, you take the view of -- right now, when you’re running a campaign, you follow that line. And there’s no other explanation for it, because she’s smart enough to know the downside.

AMY GOODMAN: And Obama and Edwards?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I -- you know, it’s shocking. It’s really surprising and shocking, but there we are. That’s American politics circa 2007.

AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, thank you very much for being with us, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. His piece in the New Yorker is called “Shifting Targets: The Administration’s Plan for Iran.”

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/02/1438251

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) lays her hands on the stones of Jerusalem's Western Wall Nov. 14, 2005.

Clinton gets boost from rabbi poll, calls for undivided Jerusalem

By Ron Kampeas | Published 09/15/2007 | World News |

... Despite the stepped-up challenges from Obama and Giuliani, a recent poll of 200 rabbis from all of the major denominations named [Hillary Clinton] as the presidential candidate most supportive of Israel and Jewish causes.

According to the survey conducted by a synagogue innovation and leadership organization called STAR, Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal, Clinton polled highest on the Israel question, at 22 percent, followed by Giuliani at 16 percent and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at 3 percent.

Clinton also was ranked as most supportive of Jewish causes in America in general with 24 percent, followed again by Giuliani with 10 percent and Obama with 3 percent ...

http://www.jstandard.com/articles/3169/1/Clinton-gets-boost-from-rabbi-poll,-calls-for-undivided-Jerusalem