Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday urged the South Asian countries to promote pubic-private partnership by devising mechanism for achievements of Beijing Goals on gender equality and women empowerment. The Prime Minister, inaugurating the three-day 5th South Asia regional ministerial conference, said Beijing declaration emphasises on empowerment of women, fight against poverty, access to education and health, equal opportunity to jobs and women representation in decision-making. The conference is being attended by women ministers from all the Saarc countries, jointly organised by the ministry of women development and the United Nations Development Fund For Women (UNIFEM) to celebrate 10 years of Beijing platform.
More than 1000 women from different walks of life were present at the inaugural meeting. The Prime Minister said civil society organisations and NGOs are important stakeholders along with the government and global development partners in achieving Beijing Goals.
The Prime Minister proposed that the conference should focus on concrete action, which should include exploring mechanisms for considering priorities necessary to enrich development processes; promoting land or livestock-based livelihood projects for women groups in rural areas for economic empowerment; facilitating legal recourse to women in distress and sharing best practices for gender mainstreaming.
The Prime Minister said the ministry of women development will need to converge its resources, skills and expertise to play lead role as an advocate, lobbyist, catalyst and co-ordinator in more effective ways. He urged South Asian countries that they must encourage institutionalised co-operation by sharing their best practices to empower women in their countries.
The Prime Minister said government is working toward zero tolerance on violence against women to eliminate various forms of gender discrimination from the country.
He said Beijing Plus Ten is the modern approach to fight against feminisation of poverty, access to education and health, access to decent jobs, representation of women in decision-making bodies and the right of sustainable development towards new challenges.
He said Beijing Plus Ten requires commitment and mobilisations from all South Asian countries because we face several challenges regarding women empowerment in increasingly globalisation.
He said: "Gender mainstreaming is not an end but a means to an end," and added that it needs increased gender balance and increased attention to gender equality perspectives as an integral part of all activities to all programs.
The Prime Minister said poverty in Pakistan is basically a rural phenomenon, to facilitate rural women regarding income generation through micro-finance loans, we are moving towards up-scaling efforts to extend the outreach.
He said Pakistan and India are two important countries of the region and Kashmir issue cannot be resolved without dialogue and according to the wishes of Kashmiris.
Advisor to Prime Minister on Women Development Nilofer Bakhtiar, Saarc secretary-general Lyonpo Chenkyab, UNIFEM executive-director Dr Noeleen Heyzer also addressed the conference. Nilofer Bakhtiar appreciated efforts of the Prime Minister and the President to empower women. She said access to education and health facilities, gender equality, reduction in poverty needs more budgetary allocation for empowerment of women in South Asian countries.
Noeleen Heyzer in keynote address urged that all South Asian countries must join hands to end violence against women, empower the women and to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
She said South Asian countries are full of resources and with effective use, they can deal with major issues including human trafficking and violence against women.
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