As the Asia Pacific Conference on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment is convened in Bangkok, UN ESCAP executive secretary Shamsad Akthar shares that empowering women is key to sustainable development.

Change is in the air: today women have better access to education, health services and jobs, as well as a greater voice in parliaments. Progress, however, in women’s empowerment has been slow and uneven. Growth and development gains have not been shared equally, both across the globe and within regions, with development gaps wider for poor and ethnic groups and those at the lower end of the income strata.

Violence, conflicts and climate adversities have disproportionately impacted women, magnifying gender injustice and vulnerabilities.

Greater integration of women in the labour market – at all levels and in all sectors – is key to equitable, inclusive and sustainable development and is a legitimate right of women. Even though women constitute 50 per cent of Asia-Pacific’s total working age population, their participation in formal employment is uniformly lower than that of men. In many countries in the region, the national female employment-to-population ratios are below 50 per cent, which is not the case for men.

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