8th March - to be continued . . .
8 March - Across the region, events have been organized to mark International Women’s Day. UNDP offices in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine took this opportunity to celebrate progress and identify further challenges in achieving gender equality, as an essential part of national development efforts.
Cooperation with parliaments, the role of the media and creative projects are three common themes this year: joint UN-parliament activities are taking place in Georgia and Ukraine, while in Kyrgyzstan a press conference on 6 March involved participants from the parliament, the president’s office and the non-governmental sector.
In Ukraine, the human rights committee of the parliament held a joint press conference with UNDP’s Equal Opportunities Programme and the UN Public Information Unit, presenting the gender equality situation in Ukraine. The two main messages were around equal rights of women and men in the social and economic sphere and the need to increase the number of women in decision-making bodies. Women predominate in low-status jobs which offer limited social security coverage, while only a handful of parliamentarians are female.
Ms Larysa Kobelyanska, Manager of the UNDP-led Equal Opportunities Programme, told the meeting, “The benefits of involving women, taking their contribution and ideas into account, have positive impact on the entire society and lead towards drastic changes: the politics is getting socially-responsive, investments take humanitarian nature, while social self-perception of the nation improves.”
Those attending the press conference also received a copy of the Development and Transition newsletter from December 2007, which is focused on gender issues in Europe and the CIS.
In Kyrgyzstan, commitments to the Millennium Development Goals and other programmes of action have led to progress in some areas: for example, the proportion of female deputies in the Kyrgyz parliament is the highest in Central Asia. Supported by the UN Gender Theme Group, which includes UNDP, women’s NGOs held public information events across the country, and women’s leaders were recognized by the presidential administration; the UN statement encouraged better cooperation between all partners from the government, civil society and the international community.
The UN Resident Coordinator in the Kyrgyz Republic, Mr Neal Walker, said in his Women’s Day speech, “there is a set of other important issues, domestic violence, poverty, pension of women and many others, which need our immediate attention, joint efforts and financing. And those issues stand behind the phrase ‘to be continued…’.”
In Georgia, Gender Week is an annual event aiming to raise public awareness of gender-related issues. Gender Week 2008 runs from Friday 7 to Friday 14 March, and includes a photo exhibition, film showing and art exhibition in Tbilisi, as well as a round table discussion on Gender aspects of the state policy.
Gender Week will end with an awards ceremony for the best gender-related media works from across the country in 2007. The awards will be jointly presented by UNDP and the Parliament of Georgia, which together implement the Gender and Politics project.
The UNDP Resident Representative, Mr Robert Watkins, told reporters: “The value of balanced reporting cannot be underestimated. Professional media with good understanding of human development is one of the signs of democracy. UNDP is pleased to support Georgian media in its interest in promoting gender equality as one of the most important human development issues.”
To read the UNDP Administrator's message on International Women's Day 2008, click here.
To read the UN Secretary-General's recent statement on violence against women, click here.
Contacts
In Georgia: Berdia Natsvlishvili, Public Relations Expert of the Gender & Politics project, +995 32 923 662 / berdia.natsvlishvili@undp.org.ge
In Kyrgyzstan: Anastasia Divinskaya, UNIFEM Adviser to UN Resident Coordinator, +996 312 611 213 / anastasia.divinskaya@unifem.org
In Ukraine: Olga Lepushinska, UNDP Equal Opportunities Programme, +380 44 531 9966 / olga.lepushinska@undp.org.ua
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