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Gender and Economy

Promoting women’s economic empowerment

UNECE is committed to gender equality and assists its 56 member countries in implementing equal rights and creating equal opportunities for women and men. In line with our mandate as an economic commission, we focus on gender equality in the economic domain. At the centre of our work is improving women’s economic opportunities and capabilities.

What we do to support women’s economic empowerment

  • We work to improve awareness of the situation of women and men in the economies in the region. This is done through research, data collection and policy dialogue.
  • We work to build capacity on closing the gender entrepreneurship gap. We support women’s business associations, entrepreneurs, and economic policy makers through training programmes, policy seminars, and entrepreneurship forums which provide the opportunity for dialogue between entrepreneurs and policy makers as well as networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs.
  • We encourage gender-sensitive economic policy making. This is done through the exchange of good practice, research, and evidence based policy recommendations to governments in our member States.
  • We strengthen sub-regional cooperation between Central Asian countries in the area of women's economic advancement. This is done through the SPECA Working Group on Gender and SDGs . The last meeting took place in October 2020.


In focus: Gender Pay Gap in the UNECE region

The gender pay gap in the UNECE region, which refers to the difference between women’s and men’s earnings from employment, ranges from less than 10 per cent in some South-East European countries to over 60 per cent in some countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The gender wage gap translates into a wider gender pension gap, exceeding 40 per cent on average in the region. UNECE conducts methodological work to ensure appropriate measurement of gender issues in official statistics, including the gender pay gap. We contribute to capacity building of women, improving their skills and economic opportunities. We lead by example by offering equal pay to our employees.