WUNRN
GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP ESSENTIAL FOR GENDER EQUALITY: AMBASSADOR CHOWDHURY
By Josh Butler
Reprint – March 25, 2015
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - At a recent panel discussion on
women’s leadership during the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women,
Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury was the lone male voice.
In
front of an audience of every creed, colour and culture, the decorated diplomat
and former president of the United Nations Security Council tied the
advancement of women’s causes to one of his top causes: the idea of ‘global
citizenship,’ of humans growing and learning and acting and working with
consideration of their place in the global community.
“Being
globally connected, emerging as global citizens, will help women achieve
equality and help them show leadership,” Chowdhury told the packed room on Mar.
17.
“Each
one of us needs to be globally connected. The days of staying in our national
boundaries are gone. It is necessary to see women’s rights and equality as
human issues, not women’s issues,” he said. “Men and women together, we have
the power to empower.”
Through
decades in diplomacy, the Bangladesh-born Chowdhury has served in some of the
U.N’s highest posts, including under-secretary-general and High Representative
for Least Developed Countries, president of the United Nations Children’s Fund
UNICEF and vice-president of the Economic and Social Council, as well as
serving two terms as Security Council president.
This
idea of global citizenship is one he has proudly championed, pushing for
greater education for young people to know and appreciate their place in the
world, and how they can understand global challenges.
Chowdhury
said the concept had existed for some time, but gained international prominence
when it was enshrined – alongside increasing school enrolment and improving
quality of education – as one of three priorities on the Secretary-General’s
‘Global Education First Initiative’ (GEFI) in 2012.
“Global
citizenship is your ability and capacity to think as part one broad humanity.
It is believing in ‘oneness’ of humanity, that we are all connected and
interconnected, all interdependent,” Chowdhury told IPS.
“Humanity
cannot make progress without all of us feeling that way. Whatever I do in my
community, it has an impact – positive or negative – on the rest of the world.
Nothing and no one can feel independent of connection with the world.”
Placing
global citizenship alongside such foundational educational aspirations as
increasing numbers of children attending school, and raising the quality of
those schools, illustrates the extent to which the U.N. supports the concept.
In
contrast to the concrete, empirical first and second goal, a brochure
produced in conjunction with the launch of the GEFI outlined global
citizenship as a more esoteric, ethereal concept; concerned not so much with
achieving a certain statistic or milestone, but with bringing about a more
fundamental shift in how education itself is delivered.
“Interconnected
global challenges call for far-reaching changes in how we think and act for the
dignity of fellow human beings. It is not enough for education to produce
individuals who can read, write and count. Education must be transformative and
bring shared values to life,” the brochure stated.
“It
must cultivate an active care for the world… education must also be relevant in
answering the big questions of the day… it must give people the understanding,
skills and values they need to cooperate in resolving the interconnected
challenges of the 21st century.”
Chowdhury
cited economic development, climate change and peace as the three major
challenges that require advanced global citizenship to find a solution.
“Nobody
can just get a normal degree from a university and think that knowledge will
carry them through. They have to know what’s happening in the rest of the
world. We have a better world if we feel for others in need who are
impoverished and going through challenges,” he said.
“The
value of education is in learning to be part of a bigger world. Being born a
human has some responsibility, and that entails being aware of the challenges
and how best you can contribute to resolving them.”
In
his presentation to the CSW panel, Chowdhury invoked women in Africa – who he
said “faced the heaviest odds in the world on many fronts” – as a source of
inspiration for women worldwide fighting for gender equality.
“I
am personally encouraged to see the leadership of African women. They face
heavy odds, but come up with enormous amounts of energy, creativity and
leadership to make their presence felt,” he said.
In
speaking with IPS, he invoked global citizenship as a basic cornerstone for
effective leadership moving toward a sustainable international future – but
said that some foundational aspects of current education would need to be
remoulded to achieve the ideal learning system to craft successful global
citizens.
“Sometimes
people in industrialised countries think they know everything, that their
education is the best, but in many cases those students have the least
knowledge of the challenges in other parts of the world. The majority of the
world’s population are going through concerns not even known to people in other
parts of the world,” Chowdhury said.
“People
are told they learn to get a degree, to get a job, to get money. That is the
central focus in many countries. Really, the most important thing is to learn
about the world, its diversity, that there are many languages and cultures and
ethnicities.”
Both
Chowdhury and the GEFI cited numerous barriers to implementing better systems
to teach global citizenship, including outdated teaching methods and equipment,
insufficient teacher capacity to teach such concepts, and the costs of updating
or reforming such systems.
“Reviews
from around the world find that today’s curricula and textbooks often reinforce
stereotypes, exacerbate social divisions, and foster fear and resentment of
other groups or nationalities. Rarely are curricula developed through a
participatory process that embraces excluded and marginalized groups,” the GEFI
brochure stated.
Chowdhury,
however, stressed that the costs of inaction far outweighed the costs and
difficulty of reforming educational systems.
“We
have ignored global citizenship and interconnectedness, valued independence of
our countries, and conflict is happening. Economic development, trade regimes,
all these things are are seriously affected if we don’t [change],” he said.
“This
is why we are stepping up our concern and interest in promoting global
citizenship as a value to be added to humanity’s opportunities.”
Edited by Kitty Stapp