NEWS

8 December 2005

GENDER AND ECONOMY IN CENTRAL ASIA

Gender and economy in Central Asia will be discussed on 8-9 December under the aegis of the United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA).

The meeting will focus on what can be done concerning capacity building in the area of gender and economy, exchange of experience and promoting cross-sectoral links with other areas of SPECA activities, especially in statistics, trade and ITC. Attention will be given to supporting women’s self-employment and entrepreneurship.

Question of the week to Aitkul Samakova, Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of Kazakhstan and Head of the National Gender Machinery

Why was the initiative on gender and economy launched under SPECA?

SPECA - the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia - provides an excellent framework to help countries mainstream gender into economic activities and policies.

Women’s potential in our countries still remains untapped, even though they are more educated than men. The unemployment rate is higher among women. Although the future of Kazakhstan is linked with its industrial development, few women study technical specializations and constitute only a third of industrial sector employees. Average wages for women are one third lower than for men. Progress in this area is essential not only to ensure equal opportunities for women and men but also to effectively use the country’s economic potential for sustainable development.

Countries could thus benefit from raising awareness on women’s economic contribution, exchanging good practices, and identifying tools for mainstreaming gender into the labour market, budgetary, trade and ICT policies. We will also be able to discuss how to eliminate gender-specific barriers resulting in a wage gap, the difficulties of combining work with family responsibilities as well as cultural and social stereotypes of women’s roles. Kazakhstan, as well as other SPECA countries, already has good practices in some of these areas, such as in developing micro-credit schemes.

This initiative was launched by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan at the International Conference on Strengthening Sub-regional Economic Cooperation in Central Asia and the Future Role of the UN SPECA (Astana, 2005), where SPECA member countries agreed to consider establishing a new working group on Gender and Economy. Its work will be supported by UNECE and UNESCAP in cooperation with partner organizations. Kazakhstan will actively participate in the work of the new Working Group.

Source: UNECE Weekly, Issue N° 149 – 5-9 December 2005