Islamabad - The Government is committed to reducing gender inequality and to promote employment opportunities for women in Pakistan, stated by the Federal Secretary of Labour and Manpower, Mr Tariq Iqbal Puri. He was addressing the Signing Ceremony of Canadian $8 million national project titled “Promoting Gender Equality for Decent Work” 2010-2015. He appreciated the generous financial support of the Government of Canada and the technical support of ILO to help women for decent employment opportunities. He expressed his confidence that ILO is known in public for implementing successful projects.

While speaking on the occasion, the Canadian High Commissioner, Mr Randolph Mank highlighted Canada’s support to Pakistan for the socio-economic development of people, particularly women and their economic empowerment. He mentioned that CIDA had a good experience of working with ILO on a similar project during 2005-2009 and the new project would surely add value to the successes made in this regard.

Mr Khurshid Ahmed, General Secretary of the Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF), commended the excellent collaboration of ILO, CIDA and other partners to promote equal employment opportunities for women in Pakistan. He reiterated the workers’ full support to implement this project. Ms Shahana Kaukab, Managing Committee Member, Employers Federation of Pakistan (EFP) also indicated the need to make the workplace friendly for the women and welcomed the project. Both EFP and PWF appreciated CIDA funding for this project and showed confidence that ILO with stakeholders will successfully achieve the objectives of the project.

Mr Donglin Li, Country Director, ILO Country Office for Pakistan thanked the Canadian Government for their immense support in promoting Decent Work in Pakistan. He said that promoting gender equality is at the heart of the ILO Decent Work Country Programme. In the previous CIDA funded project ILO trained more than 5,000 women to impart employable skills and 90 per cent of trainees found employment. The new project has three major components: to strengthening national mechanisms to promote equal employment opportunities for women in the country; total of 6,300 women and men will be trained in employable skills based on the ILO’s TREE methodology; thirdly, facilitate print and electronic media to undertake awareness campaign and dialogue on issues related to working women. In this regard, the capacity of the media will be strengthened through trainings and sensitization regarding the issues being faced by the working women.

Mr Li assured all stakeholders of another successful implementation of the project to address the gender inequality issue and expressed the ILO’s commitment to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Pakistan in their difficult times.

For further information please contact:

Mr Saifullah Chaudhry
CO-Islamabad
Tel: +92 51 2276456-8
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