Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umer on Thursday reaffirmed the government’s commitment for reducing gender disparity and providing equal opportunities to girls and women for actualizing their potential so that they could contribute to economic prosperity.
Chairing a meeting here on the National Gender Policy Framework, he appreciated the analytical work and asked for it to be translated into gender specific policy actions that the federal and provincial governments must adopt and reflect in their upcoming programmes and budgetary allocations.
The minister was also briefed on the governance and institutional initiatives that are planned to be rolled out by the Planning Commission for promoting gender integration across all national policies, programmes, offices and key management processes.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Jehanzeb Khan, Secretary Planning Abdul Aziz Uquili, Member Social Sector Dr Shabnum Sarfraz, and senior officers of Planning Ministry attended the meeting.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jahanzeb Khan said the Commission would generate Gender Based Budgeting Report to indicate gender focused interventions; develop gender focused action plan and M&E frameworks; and hold quarterly reviews against action plans and targets set in that regard.
Dr Shabnum Sarfraz highlighted the gender disparity at education and employment level. There were 9.7 million out of school girls of primary school age, while only 14 million (20%) out of 72 million women being in the working age group, were in the labour force, she added.
She shared the findings of the survey rolled out across the Planning Ministry, saying the evidence was being used to guide development of a programme for promoting gender conducive work environment across all federal ministries and divisions in 2022-2023.
The Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, being cognizant of this dismal standing, has been pursuing gender parity as a priority agenda.
Intensive nation-wide multi-channel consultative exercise was conducted engaging ministries, provincial departments, subject experts, development partners, academicians, researchers, practitioners and youth representatives.
The National Gender Policy Framework identifies focused, evidence-informed high impact strategic priorities for accelerating progress on gender mainstreaming and development.
