Progress made
During 2007 UNECE made substantive progress in mainstreaming gender into its work. The discussion on economics of gender at the Commission’s sixtieth anniversary session and its recommendations played a key role in this process. New activities supported by extrabudgetary funding were undertaken by the Project Working Group on Gender and Economy of the United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) and further progress was made in developing gender statistics (www.unece.org/oes/gender/welcome).
Sixtieth Anniversary session and its follow-up
The session raised awareness that gender is among decisive factors promoting sustainable development in the UNECE region along with energy security and transport development. The discussion focused on links between gender equality, competitiveness and growth, country experiences, EU equal opportunities policy and role of UNECE and other international organizations in mainstreaming gender into economic policies. The importance of effective mechanisms to share power, child care and work, was stressed by Norway, to successfully use men’s and women’s talents to promote growth. Arguments for gender as “smart economics” were based on findings of the Gap Report of the Davos Forum and a new Action Plan on Gender Equality of the World Bank Group. Member countries encouraged UNECE to strengthen efforts to mainstream gender into its work, in particular in such areas as entrepreneurship, gender implications of ageing and gender-responsive budgets, and to identify relevant modalities.
Member countries also took note of the proposal to organize a regional meeting in 2008-2009 to review progress and identify good practices in the area of women and economy in the context of the Beijing +15 review, and requested the Executive Committee to discuss its format and modalities.
As a follow-up to the Commission session member countries established an Informal Group of member countries on gender and economy led by Norway. The group had two meetings and reported to the Executive Committee on proposed next steps: establishing a Network of representatives of economic/finance ministries and gender machineries (NETECON), improving knowledge of UNECE staff on gender issues (gender training), identifying a few “pilot” areas in the work programmes of Sectoral Committees where mainstreaming efforts could bring tangible results, preparing inputs for a global conference on financing for development planned for 2008 and exploring options for additional resources to carry the work.
Sectoral Committees
Gender aspects are part of the regular UNECE programme of work only under the Conference of European Statisticians. In 2007, for the first time, gender was also discussed by another sectoral committee, at the second session of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Integration in December. Gender related aspects of entrepreneurship and its legal framework were also included in the international conference on reducing barriers to entrepreneurship which the Committee organized in June.
SPECA Project Working Group on Gender and Economy
In 2007 the Project Working Group identified priorities areas for activities and sources of their funding: promoting gender sensitive economic policies and capacity building to increase women’s economic opportunities in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector (www.unece.org/oes/gender/SPECA).
Promoting gender sensitive economic policies. The following activities were completed: (i) a multi-stakeholder network of national statistical offices, economic research institutes and national gender machineries was established; (ii) a stocktaking study on women’s economic position and country policies reflected in National Development Strategies in SPECA member countries was prepared; (iii) two expert meetings discussed good practices in mobilizing women’s economic potential in Central Asia (July in Geneva and November in Berlin). These activities were funded from the interregional DA project 2007-2008. The Working Group works in close cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Regional Bureau for CIS of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, International Labour Organization (ILO) and European Union.
Capacity building. A total of 40 policymakers responsible for SME policies, representatives of women’s business associations, members of academia and NGOs from SPECA member countries were trained during two workshops (Haifa, August/September and October/November) whose themes were support systems for women in small business, information and communication technologies for SMEs and opportunities for tourism in rural areas. Both workshops were fully supported by the Government of Israel and implemented by the Mount Carmel International Training Center in cooperation with UNECE. The workshops were run in Russian and course materials included the UNECE publication on good practices in access to financing and ICT for women entrepreneurs.
Gender statistics
Gender statistics continued to be one of the areas of major
activities of UNECE under the Conference of European Statisticians. In addition to maintenance of the gender statistics website and
database (http://www.unece.org/stats/gender/welcome1.htm), training tools on gender statistics were developed in cooperation with the World Bank as well as the Population Fund, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and UNDP. As part of its work on gender statistics, UNECE also continues efforts to improve measurement of violence against women as requested by Assembly Resolution A/RES/61/143.
Challenges
Among key challenges for 2008 are:
Launching the preparatory process for a regional review in women and economy area in the context of Beijing +15 review.
Strengthening gender aspects of work of sectoral committees.
Supporting the SPECA Project Working Group programme of work for 2008, which includes assessment of business environment for women entrepreneurs in rural and urban areas in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (in cooperation with ILO), further work on MDG related indicators in the economic area, establishment of a knowledge hub on gender and economy, and two training workshops organized in cooperation with the Government of Israel.
Providing timely contribution(s) on region-specific gender aspects requested by the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, in particular the financing for development process.
Further developing cooperation with United Nations agencies under the “One United Nations” process at country and regional levels.
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