Establishment of Women Development Department demonstrates state’s strong commitment to the cause of gender equity and female empowerment. This department is striving to adopt strategies that work best to foster gender mainstreaming. Women’s empowerment has internationally been recognized as the most effective driver of socio-economic development. Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals is directly linked to inclusion of females in every walk of national life. SDG-5 specifically focuses on gender empowerment.
Women’s socio-economic participation is not possible without eliminating various vectors of disadvantage, which begin at birth and increase over the span of a woman’s life. Hence, it becomes government’s responsibility not only to help women understand the barriers they are confronted with, but also help them overcame these obstacles through legislation, policy formulation, promoting best practices, affirmative action and advocacy.
While pledging to promote women rights on behalf of Government of the Punjab, I would also like to invite everyone to come forward and embrace the agenda for gender equality which is a cross-cutting and inter-sectoral theme and needs reinforcement from all players including public & private sector, academia and practitioners, NGOs and Development Partners. For creation of such synergies, Women Development Department is here to provide a platform to bring everyone together, and to act as a catalyst to stimulate the social change.
Usman Ali Khan
Secretary