Women Empowerment

Women’s empowerment is identified as a goal in the Millennium Declaration, which recognizes the need “to promote the empowerment of women as an effective way to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable”. The message issued by the UN Secretary-General on 8 March 2003 in commemoration of International Women’s Day reaffirmed the need for gender mainstreaming in development.

“Study after study has shown that there is no effective development strategy in which women do not play a central role. When women are fully involved, the benefits can be seen immediately: families are healthier and better fed; their income, savings and reinvestment go up. And what is true of families is also true of communities and, in the long run, of whole countries”. The message concludes: “There is no time to lose if we are to reach the Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015. Only by investing in the world's women can we expect to get there. When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding generations are given a better start in life”.

GLOPEC will help empower women by tackling the following issues:

Women’s education and opportunities
Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural Sector
Labour-force participation
Women’s political participation
Violence against women