She speaks: Redefining global finance for the Global South - Dilma Rousseff

I think it was very important for me to be the first female president of the NDB because I participated in the creation of the NDB as president of Brazil. So I saw this project as a project that I consider to be very important to me. It makes a big difference in what I believe is what we can contribute to a better, more peaceful world and a more developed world with better governance. I know it's difficult for a woman to become president of a financial institution, but we are also here because we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fourth world conference on women held here in Beijing in 1995. So in 1995, I think a major contribution to my being here today took place. That conference launched some of the principles so that women could play a more prominent role. I think there were about four things. First, that the issue of women was not a biological issue. It was a social and historical issue that the concept when we talked about gender, we weren't just talking about a biological situation. We were talking about women as a historical and social product. And as historical, it was a great influence from the paternalism of early societies.

A volunteer and I learned a lot through that conference as a woman or as a girl and I remember very clearly the very first principle, madam president, as you said, is women's rights are human rights and it goes to all aspects of life.

There are no human rights without women's rights.

I believe that women play a very important role in society. I was president and I know that it is impossible to create social policies for growth and opportunities without considering women. Why? Because you see in the economic sphere what we have learned both in cities and in rural areas is that women are great entrepreneurs. They are capable of running a small business. And more than just running it, they are capable of creating a small business. So on rural properties when there is agri business, women generally run the agri business, the small agri business on that property. For example, you're going to make honey from bees. In addition to cultivating the land, you have some bees. So, she produces honey in bottles and sells it, thereby improving the local income. From this to the service and industrial area, you also have small businesses. The woman who repairs clothes, who is capable, for example, of providing a service such as a hairdresser, the one who does nails, the one who also takes care of children in daycare centers, for example, because it's very important for women. When you talk about women, you also have to talk about children. Why? Because women have a very special relationship with their children. When I was president of Brazil, we had two clear ideas. Without women, you cannot carry out major social transformation programs. To have women incorporated into industrial work, which is very important. Women generally have great precision for assembling delicate products. They have a characteristic which is fine motor skills, the ability to produce and insert small components. For this, you need to have a structure that guarantees women peace of mind at work, knowing that their children are well cared for.

You are absolutely right. My experience as president in Brazil reflects precisely that change. When you change and you want to change. And here in China, there was an absolutely fantastic process that lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty. In Brazil, we also had this process. And what I realized in my country and I think it happened here in China too is this. For us, it is important to lift families out of poverty. To lift families out of poverty, it is essential that women play a central role both in accessing public services and in accessing income distribution. We never gave income distribution to the head of the family. It was called Bolsa Família or family allowance. It was support for the family. Who did we give it to? To the woman. It was a social technology because it involved a credit card that was given to the women of low-income families. And we were sure that these women would ensure that the children had the food they needed. And we set conditions. You will receive a certain amount. But in order to receive that amount, your child must be in school, must have a certain level of attendance, must attend school at least 70% of the time. In addition, they must have access to vaccines, they must be vaccinated, and if a woman is pregnant, she has to undergo all prenatal care before the child is born. So, this was a process of conditionality, but it was a process of conditionality that had exactly what you said. If you give women conditions and opportunities for work, income, access to public services, the whole family improves. And this was recognized even by the FAO and the UN when we were taken off the hunger map because women guarantee food on the table for their children. They do everything they can to ensure this. And then there's another issue that I think is fantastic: education.

What is important for the global south today? Obviously infrastructure. Without infrastructure you cannot achieve greater development. Obviously, I believe that development must always be people centered. As President Xi Jinping so aptly puts it, but in addition to infrastructure such as ports, airports, roads, and highways, social infrastructure such as universities, schools, and for example, something very important today as we saw with COVID-19, hospitals is also very important. All of these types of infrastructure are highly prioritized by NDB. Furthermore, we know today that we are in another technological and industrial era which is the era of digitalization and artificial intelligence. That is why the issue of technological development is also very important to us. NDB can and has formed partnerships in this area. For example, we are structuring and financing a smart hospital just as we financed hospitals here in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now we are financing a hospital in partnership with Chinese companies. In addition to these hospitals, I am referring to another issue, namely technology parks which are very important for countries in the global south. And NDB is strategically located here in China. Why strategically? Because we know that today China is undoubtedly the most industrialized country and that it has a strategic position in the global south and also in the world in terms of technological development. So for us it is very important to bring this to the countries of the global south to create this opportunity for development because if countries do not develop in this area they become mere consumers of digital platforms such as Uber which is the most common western digital platform.

I believe that this job is very important because this is the bank of the global south and also the BRICS bank, and BRICS is a very generous project that began in 2014 in Fortaleza, Brazil. It was about creating a long-term credit instrument so that countries in the global south, mainly Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa at that time, could have access to long-term financing. This was something that was rare in the world. And when it did exist, it was at very high interest rates. So the bank was created designed to be a completely different proposition from those that already existed mainly because it would never impose conditionalities such as privatization for example or influencing projects in a way that did not respect the sovereignty of countries. This was very characteristic of the financing model up until then and also because it was difficult to access credit for long because to build infrastructure which was what we needed you need long-term credit over 10, 20, in some cases such as for hydroelectric power for example it's 30 years.