I would like to warmly
welcome Heads and representatives of the
national gender-linked institutions from
over 35 UNECE member countries. It is a
particular pleasure to welcome the representatives
of line ministries dealing with economic
and social matters including the ministries
of finance, as they rarely participate in
gender mainstreaming discussions. I am strongly
convinced that close contacts and regular
exchange of experiences between line ministries
and national gender machineries are essential
for achieving progress in mainstreaming
gender into economic policies.
The Symposium is jointly
organized by UN ECE, the Office of the Special
Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI) and the
Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW).
Let me express my thanks to Ms. Angela King,
Special Adviser to the Secretary-General
on on Gender Issues, and to Ms. Carolyn
Hannan, Director of DAW, for their advice,
support and excellent cooperation with us
on the preparation of this event.
The event is the UNECE contribution to the
10-year review of the implementation of
the Beijing commitments which will take
place in 2005. The Symposium aims at supporting
efforts of our member States to implement
the Beijing Platform for Action (1995) and
the recommendations of the twenty -third
special session of the General Assembly
(Beijing+5) in the area of economy in the
context of the UNECE region.
Region-specific priorities
were agreed at the Regional Meeting on the
5-year Review of the Beijing Platform for
Action (2000). They clearly point out at
the necessity to address four major challenges
in the area of women and economy: (i) eliminating
discrimination against women in the labour
market; (ii) increasing employment opportunities;
(iii) promoting gender equality in social
protection, and (iv) empowering women through
access and control of assets (E/ECE/RW.2/2000/7).
From the perspective of the last 10 years
it must be said that progress in implementing
these commitments has been very uneven within
the UNECE region, both by country and by
area. In a number of UNECE countries, particularly
EU Member States, the situation of women
in the economy has improved. Many EU members
progressed in a number of areas such as
women's employability, childcare provisions,
engendering budgetary policies and pension
systems. This has been due to national efforts
undertaken by selected Governments and civil
society but also EU legislative framework,
provided by the acquis communautaire
and the European Employment Strategy and
policies, including directives of the European
Commission. Although this progress has to
be measured against the scope of existing
inequalities and gaps, it certainly represents
a step forward.
The same cannot be said
for the situation in other UNECE member
countries, especially in a number of countries
in Eastern Europe and the CIS, where there
has been a setback in women's position in
the economy. Women have taken a large share
of the costs of systemic changes while their
access to opportunities has remained lower
than for men. Only a tiny fraction of privatized
assets went to women in all countries in
eastern Europe and the CIS. This limited
their opportunities as entrepreneurs in
the emerging private sector. A UNECE publication
on women's entrepreneurship points out that
in eastern Europe and CIS countries for
which there are data, men become self-employed
twice as often as women. In the Czech Republic,
for example, only 9% are self-employed,
compared to an 18% share for men.
In all countries budgetary
constraints, erosion of the welfare system
of the past and cuts in public expenditure
on public health, education and family-related
benefits substantially increased demands
on women's caring functions. At the same
time the policy debate on the shape of a
market-based system of social protection
has remained largely gender neutral, because
of a lack of political will, resurgence
of traditional views on women's role in
society, and the lack of data and analysis.
In these countries, women
have been more affected than men by job
cuts and the decline in labour force than
men, especially in the first phase of the
transition process. Although these negative
trends have been reversed in a number of
countries, the quality of women's jobs and
pay gaps remain a serious issue. According
to the Economic Survey of Europe (2003)
sectoral changes in women's employment,
especially within the service sector, indicate
that women have moved away from better paid
jobs in market-related services, such as
banking, to low paid public service jobs.
More gender perspective
in economic policies to ensure gender equality
is an important priority for all countries
in the UNECE region from the point of view
of the implementation of the Beijing commitments
as well as those embodied in other United
Nations global Conferences, particularly
the Millennium Declaration. It should be
underlined, however, that this is also the
condition for ensuring economic growth in
these countries, where women are well educated
and make a substantive input to GDP and
job creation.
Since 2000 the UNECE has
increased its gender related activities.
The UNECE gender activities are based on
its comparative advantage and its role as
a regional arm of the United Nations with
a mandate to coordinate regional activities
related to the Beijing and other UN global
Conferences. These activities focus on economic
aspects of gender equality and include promotion
of regional dialogue, exchange of good practices
and policy recommendations and improvement
of gender data and methodologies. They cover
the five following areas: gender aspects
of employment, ageing, women's entrepreneurship,
ICT, and statistics.
The differentiated situation
of women and men on the labour market in
transition economies was for the first time
addressed at the intergovernmental level
by the Commission at its 2002 session, based
on UNECE analytical work in this area. One
of the conclusions of the debate was that
gender aspects of employment need more attention
at policy level, particularly in order to
promote those policies and measures which
would increase employability of women in
transition economies.
The UNECE work in the area
of demographic trends have a strong gender
component and is directly linked to the
follow-up to the Ministerial Conference
on Ageing (Berlin, September 2002). The
Berlin Ministerial Declaration
as well as the Regional Implementation
Strategy for the Madrid International Plan
of Action on Ageing call for mainstreaming
a gender perspective in all ageing policies
in the context of ensuring gender equality
of access to social protection, particularly
pensions, and for addressing the gender
inequalities in health over the life course.
UNECE will facilitate the review and implementation
of the commitments made at the Conference,
including those directly related to the
gender dimension of ageing.
The Second Forum of Women
Entrepreneurs (Geneva, March 2003) addressed
financing of self-employed women through
non-discriminatory access to bank loans
and the development of innovative financing
schemes for women entrepreneurs; and women's
access to E-technology, through the promotion
of ICT training and the use of E-business.
The UNECE paper on women's self-employment
prepared for the Symposium provides an overview
of issues, good practices and policy options
in the area of self-employment. The publication
on women's entrepreneurship in the UNECE
region is also available.
UNECE is also mainstreaming
gender into ICT policies in the region,
in particular through the preparatory process
for WSIS. ICT is considered as a tool for
advancing gender equality in relation to
increasing women's employability. E-networking
among NGOs addressing gender issues, E-learning
and women's political participation through
E-governance, are other innovative approaches
to gender equality.
The UNECE Regional Gender
Statistics website has been made available
to the public since April 2002. It provides
an overview of gender issues and policy
initiatives in UNECE member countries in
a selected number of key policy areas. For
each of these areas, a list of statistical
indicators is provided to allow the situation
of women and men to be monitored. The next
steps will be to organize an exchange of
experiences among regional commissions and
other UN entities on methodological issues
in key statistical areas and on ways to
introduce the gender dimension unto the
MDG indicators. It is also planned to bring
together the producers and users of statistics
for selected policy debates, which would
be organized jointly with UNDP at the regional
and national levels.
UNECE gender activities
have been developed in collaboration with
United Nations organizations, sub-regional
organizations and international organizations.
I would like to thank especially UNDP, UNIFEM
with which we have a MoU agreement, and
the ILO for their excellent cooperation
with UNECE based on the comparative advantage
of each organization. In preparation for
this Symposium the assistance of the UNDP
Regional Office in Bratislava and national
offices in CIS countries were essential
in identifying some participants from line
ministries and logistical support.
UNECE activities are thus
very much in line with the main themes of
today's Symposium as we will review and
discuss the gender aspects of economic policies,
based on what has been done so far to engender
macroeconomics, and taking into account
commitments made in this respect.
The Symposium will address
four main themes. Theme I will address gender
aspects of access to resources and financing.
Theme II --support to women's employability
(especially training and retraining schemes,
access to self-employment and ICT, and measures
for making work and family responsibilities
compatible). Theme III -- gender mainstreaming
in budgets at central and local levels (especially
fiscal policies and selected types of public
expenditures such as proactive employment,
health and housing) and Theme IV - social
security and pensions.
The participants in the
Symposium will also discuss roles, responsibilities
and accountability of the various actors
involved in the mainstreaming process (Governments,
parliamentarians, local authorities, the
private sector, NGOs, academic community)
as well as the institutional mechanisms
which can best ensure continuing dialogue
among these actors and ensuing effective
decision-making. The role of regional cooperation
among UN agencies and international organizations
will be also discussed.
I hope that the Symposium
will be a good contribution to further strengthening
the process of mainstreaming gender into
economic policies through exchange of experiences,
but also through building partnership and
a platform for dialogue between gender machineries
and line ministries in the area of economics
at national and regional levels.
Before closing I would
like to express my gratitude to the Government
of Switzerland, the Government of the United
Kingdom and the Office of the Special Adviser
on Gender Issues in New York, for the funding
they provided, thus making this symposium
possible.
Thank you for your attention.
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