WOMEN IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
(Remarks by the Hon. Delia Domingo Albert, Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
during the International Convention with the Theme: “Women Living Up to the
Challenges of the Global Economy,” 
17 May 2004, Hotel Intercontinental, Makati City)

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for the invitation to address you this morning.

Thank you for the recognition that you will generously award to me. I would like to dedicate and share this award to the countless women in the government who continue to serve our national interest with passion and dedication through selfless performance of their duties and responsibilities. I make special reference to all the women in our foreign service who take on multiple roles quietly and efficiently to promote the country’s political, economic and social interests at home and overseas in 83 posts covering 165 countries and attending to the needs of 8 million Filipinos. Specifically, these interests could be identified under the three main objectives of our foreign policies:

                    1. enhancing our national security
                    2. promoting our economic development
                    3. attending to the welfare of the Filipinos overseas.

It is in attaining some of the objectives of our foreign policies that I welcome this opportunity to speak on a relevant subject: “Women Living Up to the Challenges of the Global Economy”.

One of the results of international interaction is the emergence of the phenomenon of globalization. Like an onrushing vehicle for wide ranging reforms in our twenty-first century, globalization cannot be stopped in its tracks. However, we can influence its direction; we can cushion its impact; and we can prepare to use it as an instrument for improving the conditions of our lives. More importantly, we can give it a human face so that we may find its relevance in our world. This is the response that I believe women can make to the challenge of globalization.

But one might ask, what really is globalization? Has it sprung up on us just by chance at some moment in history? Or as I pointed out, is it a culminating effect of a series of common initiatives, across sectors and classes, that span the years of global interaction towards shared development goals? Before I risk limiting the unraveling nature of globalization by defining it, I would just characterize it as a fact of life that is transforming the way we carry on relationships with governments, trading allies and business partners around the world. It is about interconnected communities, integrating markets, interdependent lives and interlocking aspirations for a livable society for all.

I am honored to be invited to this gathering of women leaders in business and exponents of various fields of discipline. As achievers, you might have narrowed your ideas about globalization to your areas of interest and concern. So, let me say outright that for you, globalization must have a special meaning. And what could be more important than to say that globalization is about opportunity.

Three areas I would like to share my thoughts on:

                    · opportunity in building business relationships for sustainable growth
                    · opportunity in pushing the limits of our capacities to levels of excellence; and
                    · opportunity in exploiting our full potentials as women – and as Filipinos – to rise equal to the challenge.


BREAKING BUSINESS BARRIERS

In the globalization regime, the entire production chains span across economies. Borders no longer limit the possibilities of doing business, but rather bring forth new paths to partnerships.

While the traditional way of doing business was with familiar friends; today, business seeks its players who together define their relationships on terms mutually beneficial and sustainable. In a program sponsored by UNIFEM, based in the Department of Foreign Affairs, I am informed of business discussions in progress between a woman-run Philippine company in General Santos and a company based in Ivory Coast and Ghana in Sub-Saharan Coast. Another woman owned herbal soap enterprises from Victoria, Laguna, made a breakthrough in doing business in the Republic of Georgia for production know-how transfer in this newly-independent country in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe. And to think, we still do not have diplomatic presence in these countries at this time! Distance, cultural values and traditional differences no longer pose as barriers to business today. What perhaps contributed to this is the ease and facility with which companies can establish contact and initiate B2B (business to business) discussions. With the internet, the world has become a smaller place for business of all sizes. In fact, it is the singular most important resource that is fueling the dynamics of deal making anywhere in the world today.

In our interconnected economies today, the ICT (information and communication technology) tools that are available to everyone since the nineties, favor the women entrepreneurs who operate from their homes. This is particularly true among the women MSMEs (micro, small, medium entrepreneurs) who have found a way to balance their responsibilities as economic players and home makers. That is why putting these tools in the hands of women would dramatically transform their roles and create a quantum leap of achievement for themselves in self-confidence and self-worth in any male-oriented society.

The dawn of the internet and its increasing popularity and the speed by which users gain access to it have accelerated the globalization process. What used to be an insular mindset has been turned into global business orientation towards and emerging market.

Admittedly, there are still remaining obstacles to seizing the opportunities spawned by globalization. Similarly, we still have to work harder and smarter to reach out to the marginalized sector of the society, home to 70% of our population. To do this, we must deepen our commitment to building partnerships across production chains, across economic classes and across sectors of our society. For it is only by our commitment that we may be able to make strong our resolve to reap the full benefits from globalization.


BUILDING BLOCKS OF EXCELLENCE

Today, possibilities in all human endeavors are awesome. These have been the by-products of the sweeping change that has reconfigured the framework of institutional structures of the global society. Standards are a common norm of conduct in sustaining relationships. A measure of performance for one applies to all. And slowly but methodically all the players in the globalization process are committed to build what a Harvard Business School guru once described as “an aristocracy based on excellence of performance”.

Information is the well- spring of knowledge and today knowledge knows no boundaries. Against  somebody else’s discovery and efficiency of doing things, we can benchmark our own in an effort to push further the frontier of knowledge. At a click of the computer mouse, one is already at the very doorstep of stores of data and statistics, wealth of information and knowledge of good practices that could serve or improve our own business, our welfare and chance at achieving excellence.

But information, by its very nature, should be shared, either under proprietary arrangement or by any mutually agreed basis of exchange. It is in this light that I challenge women leaders like yourselves to reach out to our poor sector in the society. While we may be well endowed with this vital resource, many of our countrymen in remote communities have yet to see the shore to an ocean of global information wealth. And they, too, deserve inclusion!

We have, perhaps, a paradox in the distribution of this important resource. And we can begin to change the situation by sharing what we know with those less fortunate sisters out there drowning in ignorance.

I am told that many of our women leaders, particularly, those in business, have played big sisters to the 
microbusiness starters. This is to be applauded as this is the way to serve everyone’s interests. For indeed, when you help new business entrants among the poor communities, truly you enlarge the base of your industry and strengthen the link of production chains. As you share know-how, you magnify the extent and reach of knowledge to the farthest corner of our society.

The building block of excellence starts with information. In our globalization regime, the information we share is the information we turn to knowledge. And the knowledge we share is the wisdom we reap in our ever competitive world.


WOMEN LEAD THE WAY

The acceptance and recognition of the capacity of women, in our Philippine society, is no longer a matter of  debate. Women as leaders and achievers in our midst have been in the loop of developmental progress and growth. In fact, we have broken trough the “glass ceiling” long before others started to shake the foundations of traditional social structures. We have seen two women presidents in two decades. We have nine women cabinet members out of 22. In our industry, there is a strong presence of women CEOs. In the legislature, judiciary and executive branches of government, including the entire bureaucracy, women stand toe-to-toe with men in charting the march of this nation to a brighter future. In my watch at the Department of Foreign Affairs, 50% of our ambassadors and foreign service officers are women.

While the picture is indeed pleasant, we must not relent on the improvement of the co-equal role we play in our society. The road ahead beckons to women to continue to lead the way, not so much in a competitive way with men, but in our discernment of the true values of governance, public service, fair trade practices, security of families and love for our country. We are born with the intuitive power to see with our hearts the true meaning of leadership. 

The whole world has awakened to this fact of life and, in fact, no less than the United Nations enshrined this in its Millennium Development Goals. 

It is about time that we herald to our people and to this globalizing world this role and this responsibility,

Ladies, I enjoin you all to contribute our share in making the difference.

Thank you and good day.