Govt to adopt roadmap to reduce gender gap: Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD: The Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar, said the government would adopt a gender roadmap to achieve equality.

He was chairing a high-level meeting here on Saturday during which member Social Sector and Devolution presented the draft gender roadmap proposing gender integration across all national policies, programmes, offices and key management processes.

The roadmap is designed to close the gender gap in education and employment, simultaneously empowering the young women to yield substantive Sustainable Development Goals dividends, that can in return catalyze Pakistan’s economic growth.

The agenda of Gender Development and Equality has been taken up as a national priority by the government, the minister said.

The roadmap has emerged from months-long nation-wide consultations engaging the National Youth Council, academicians, subject experts, national task forces, youth voices from across the globe, government officials and development partners. Several high impact interventions were discussed to mainstream gender equality.

The roadmap includes packages of high impact strategic interventions to confront challenges to close the gender gap and create equitable opportunities for women and girls.

Asad Umar underscored the importance of gender-transformative workplaces and called for developing a policy framework based on deliberations and research, identifying the barriers faced by female workers in public and private sector organizations.

The key recommendations should not only guide development of a public sector programme supported by necessary legal instruments to make the working environment conducive and progressive for women.

During the meeting, the minister Planning, Development and Special Initiatives expressed his concern over the rising proportion of out-of-school children following the pandemic in Pakistan and advocated tackling the challenge as a national priority.

Umar highlighted the need for exploiting the e-school experiences from the pandemic and using Covid-19 as an opportunity for introducing innovative e-solutions, e-schools and accelerated learning programmes for reaching out of school children.

While reviewing the proposed employment generating and skill-building strategies, he suggested a review in tandem with the existing interventions under the Kamyab Jawan Programme to consolidate efforts and resources under one umbrella.

The importance of dedicated transport facilities for young females was highlighted for accessing educational and employment opportunities and the minister asked for submitting a comprehensive proposal in the coming week.

He emphasized national priority to gender empowerment and urgently respond to the current situation.

He also directed submitting a proposed two-year roadmap to sectoral experts, industry leaders, and policy think tanks, for their input to finalizing it.