CAPE TOWN, April 13: Speaker of the National Assembly Dr Fehmida Mirza has called upon the world’s powerful countries to support Benazir Bhutto’s plan, modelled on the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after the World War II, to help the Muslim world in confronting extremism.

She was addressing the fourth meeting of world’s women speakers of parliament, held on the sidelines of the 114th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The meeting was presided over by the Speaker of the South African legislature, Baleka Mbete.

Dr Mirza said that global injustices had to be redressed to address the problem of terrorism.

“From the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to the conflicts in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and Kashmir, there is much that tugs at the hearts of Muslims. Violent extremists have taken advantage of resentment bred by raging conflicts and persisting injustices,” she said.

Dr Mirza is the Muslim world’s first woman speaker.

Referring to ideas outlined by the world’s first Muslim woman prime minister, Ms Bhutto, regarding “a 21st Century Marshall Plan to assist the Islamic world leap into modernity”, she said: “The rich and powerful nations … would have to mobilise resources for this effort just as the Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe after the Second World War. Funds would be directed at women and families rather than at huge and complex projects.”

She said: “The personalisation of direct and specific programmes can and will have tangible results in spreading goodwill and influence, limiting the power of violent extremists.

“The Benazir Bhutto Plan involves simple, clear, visible and pervasive steps. These may include assuring grain, schoolbooks, medicines, writing materials and inexpensive shoes for the dispossessed.”

She said: “Of course, building modern hospitals is welcome but another place to start is training women healthcare workers to work within their villages, neighbourhoods and towns. This will not only ensure providing basic healthcare in places where one finds no doctor, let alone a hospital, but also utilising women’s potential in a productive and constructive manner.”

She also called for “making women in charge of delivering clean drinking water, providing rudimentary public housing and running one-room village schools” and said this would empower women in rural communities across Asia and Africa, instead of strengthening bureaucracies.

The meeting’s theme this year is ‘Combating poverty: investing in women’.

Dr Mirza said that a fair global order could not be created without addressing the problem of women’s exclusion and poverty.

She also called upon the democratic nations of the world to “unite to protect universal humanitarian values and political freedom.”

“We must shape a world free from exploitation and maltreatment of women and indeed all human beings,” she added.—APP