Oral history interview with Noeleen Heyzer, 2002.

Biographical Note

United Nations -- Director of UNIFEM; ILO, ESCAP, Gender Programs of the Asia and Pacific Development Centre; DAWN; Women's Empowerment for UNFPA; Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women

Scope and Contents

Early childhood and education in Singapore; mixed Dutch and Chinese lineage. Effects of colonialism and poverty on her family and the region of Singapore. Effects of the Cold War and how historical forces are shaped by human resistance and creativity. Involvement with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Employment Programme (WEP). Combating issues of prostitution and sex-trade. International networking for women within the United Nations as well as outside women's organizations and NGOs. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP); UN Development Fund for Women; Asian Pacific Women's Development Center (APWDC); Asian and Pacific Development Center (APDC); Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA); Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Tracing shifts of labor-intense industrialized Singapore, to high-skill industry, and then to international finance service center. Women's empowerment and policy initiatives in the UN World Conference of Women, the World Conference on the UN Decade for Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Women's Development Agenda for the Twenty-first-century, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).Engendering politics for the International Conference on Population and Development; Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN); Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD). Need for a combination of activism and research for development. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), gender and HIV/AIDS, crisis and post-conflict Afghanistan and other countries; globalization and transnational criminalized networks. Twenty-first century issues include: globalization , fragmentation, and problems without borders; intellectual challenge of the breakdown of ethics. Development in terms of the World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prevention and empowerment programs for violence against women: Violence Against Women (VAW). The role of the Internet in knowledge networks in relation to international information exchange

Subjects

• Globalization.
• Heyzer, Noeleen--Interviews.
• Information services--International cooperation.
• International Labour Organisation.
• Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Population policy.
• Prostitution--Prevention--International cooperation.
• Sex discrimination against women.
• Singapore--Economic conditions.
• United Nations--History.
• United Nations--Officials and employees--Interviews.
• United Nations. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
• United Nations. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
• United Nations. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
• United Nations Development Fund for Women.
• Weiss, Thomas G. (Thomas George), 1946- interviewer.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ivr
• Women's rights.
• Women in development--Asia.
• Women in development--Pacific Area.
• World Conference on Women.
• World Employment Programme.
• World politics--21st century.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 2002