Event on Women’s Day held in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: UN Women, Pakistan Village Development Programme (PVDP), and National Incubation Centre (NIC) jointly organised an event to celebrate International Women’s Day-2023 here on Wednesday.

The event was organised under the Royal Norwegian Embassy-funded project Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) Project at the Nishtar Hall in Peshawar.

“DigitALL: Innovation And Technology For Gender Equality” is the theme for this year’s IWD, said a statement issued here on Wednesday.

Members of civil society represented by the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) Alliance, businesswomen, and female lawyers, were invited as guests.

Azra Jamshed, President, Women Chamber of Commerce and Industries (WCCI), Peshawar, and Ayesha Khan, Country Director Hashoo Foundation, were among the prominent guests. An open forum for the women entrepreneurs and Home Based Workers (HBWs) was provided where they displayed their goods.

The chief guest for the occasion was Law Minister KP Justice (r) Irshad Qaisar.

Speaking on the occasion, Head of Sub-Office UN Women Peshawar Zainab Qaisar Khan said: “This year we celebrate and recognise the contributions of the women and girls committed to building gender-responsive innovations, advancing innovations and digital technology. Bridging the digital gap is the need of the hour. It means overcoming factors like accessibility, online protection, and digital skills, which are important for women’s meaningful participation in technology.”

The chief guest, Irshad Qaisar, noted that a persistent gender gap still is the biggest challenge in women’s access to the digital world and technology that is a click away. Women are still underrepresented in the digital world even. Equal and consistent opportunities in the technological arena will enable women to contribute to political and economic domains that will add value to governance and rule of law.

A panel discussion about the available opportunities for women empowerment in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for making use of Digital technology was moderated by Muhammad Shahzad Khan, Project Support Officer, UN Women.