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Friday March 29, 2024

A lot still to be done for women’s economic emancipation: WEF

By Anil Datta
March 21, 2018

Despite a lot of progress having been made in Pakistan with regards to women’s emancipation, Pakistan still ranks 143rd on the index of women’s economic emancipation out of a total of 144 countries surveyed.

This was stated by Dorothy Tembo, deputy executive director, International Trade Centre (ITC), Geneva, while delivering her keynote address at a two-day conference, titled, “Closing the gender gap: a tool for economic and trade development in Pakistan’.

She was quoting the figures compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the conference held by WE-NET (Women’s Entrepreneurial Network for Trade) at a local hotel on Tuesday. Tembo said, “However, there’s a similar pattern in other countries too.”

She said she was happy to see women in Pakistan endeavouring to make a change in favour of equal opportunities for themselves. “Strong women are the driving force behind social and economic change.”

She said women ventured out of their homes during the first industrial revolution, and today they had the facility to operate even from their homes. Quoting the WEF again, Tembo said the organisation had predicted that the women’s equality globally would come after 217 years. “If women are allowed equal opportunities, it would increase the global GDP by 28 trillion dollars.”

She said that over the last quarter of a century, international trade had lifted many out of the poverty trap, and it mustn’t be forgotten that women were 50 per cent of the global population. Women’s participation in trade, she said, was crucial and women’s inclusion could multiply global trade manifold.

Women, she said, faced identical challenges globally. She said that in Pakistan 65 per cent of the women dropped out of work after getting married, being encumbered with the obligations of home and family building.

Tembo outlined the achievements of SHE TRADE, an ITC initiative that works globally to induce women into trade. She said that under its auspices lots of women’s development work had been initiated in Pakistan too. She said that the initiative played the role of a broker, raising product quality. She said over a hundred companies had signed up to it globally.

Zoubaida Allaoua, director finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation, lauded WE-NET, “We want women to prosper. Pakistan has the lowest rate of women’s participation, just one per cent. Women also face higher trade barriers, child care problems and sexual harassment.”

She acknowledged that she had met lots of women technocrats at a gathering the previous evening. These, she said, included doctors, engineers, lawyers, urban planners, university teachers, scientists and others and thought this was a highly encouraging portent.

This was followed by a panel discussion, titled, “Trade as a tool for economic development and women’s empowerment”. The panellists included Dr Farrukh Iqbal, dean, Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Karachi; Dr Shahida Wizarat, head, Department of Economics, IoBM; Hussan-Bano Burki, deputy-chief of party, USAID, PREIA; and Victor Stolzenburg, research economist, WTO.

Dr Farrukh Iqbal cited the example of the industrial revolution and said the maximum progress was made in the production of textiles. It became the chief source of women’s employment. In due time, he said, the sector became a big source of exports, which increased development by leaps and bounds and provided women lots of prosperity. In the second industrial revolution too, he said, countries like Japan and South Korea benefited greatly from the textile industry. He cited the Bangladesh textile industry where, he said, 74 per cent of the employees were women. Pakistan, he regretted, was not a major employer.

Stressing the indispensible importance of education, he said the government must ensure 100 per cent education of women. Dr Shahida Wizarat said it all depended on how honestly and efficiently the state was managed, the policies and the overall administration. Many countries, she said, could not put up with the competition on account of various internal factors. China, she added, had made phenomenal progress and had most successfully weathered international competition.

Dr Wizarat said women had to be imparted skills, as among other things, information technology. She said discrimination was faced by women at the lowest levels on account of socio-cultural factors, but education would change all that.

Hussan-Bano Burki said trade had a highly beneficial impact on women’s condition. Dr Gulden Turktan said sustainable growth happened only with the uninhibited inclusion of women. The rural component, she said, was very important, and the advent of the smart phone would play a decisive role.

She emphasized the role of the state and that of networking. Yoonyoung Cho, senior economist, World Bank Group (WBG), said the labour female participation in Pakistan was very low and that many jobs were unpaid.

Female-friendly occupations, she said, had not emerged, and socio-cultural factors like marriage, household encumbrances and safety were critical factors, according to her. In the second panel discussion, Huma Fakhr, board member of the Nestle Rural Development Project, said that we had to move from industrialisation to entrepreneurship. “We have to encourage corporate level activity.”

Salma Ahmed Alam of the Hunar Foundation endorsed the views of Huma Fakhr. Earlier, at the beginning of the conference, in her opening address, Yasmin Hyder, CEO, WE-NET, welcomed the guests and said this was a landmark conference in that WE-NET had just been founded in November 2017 and today it had really covered so much, and over 120 orgnanisations worldwide were liaisoning with it.

She heartily thanked the High Commission of Australia, Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce and the World Bank Group for their part in facilitating the conference. She underlined the need for women’s emancipation for the country to make strides in the endeavour of development and highlighted the efforts being made by WE-NET in that direction.