K-P govt determined to implement policy on women

Official says social welfare department will provide monitoring and reporting support

KP: The provincial government on Thursday reiterated its commitment to empower women and to work towards ending gender disparities in the province through the effective implementation of its Women Empowerment Policy (WEP) 2017.

This was stated by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Women Empowerment Department (SWWED) Social Welfare, Special Education Director Abdul Ghafoor Shah on Thursday while addressing an orientation session on WEP 2017. The session had been jointly organised by the SWWED and UN Women Pakistan.

“K-P’s women empowerment policy substantiates the government’s strong commitment towards dealing with challenges in the way to achieving women’s empowerment,” said Shah.

“Women empowerment is a cross-cutting and cross-sectoral theme and the policy serves as a guiding document for harmonising the government’s efforts in the administrative, legislative, judicial and political spheres to ensure equal opportunities for women and eliminate barriers which hinder women from benefiting equally from the social and economic empowerment opportunities,” the official said.

He added that the social welfare department will provide monitoring and reporting support to measure progress on the policy for both, government and donor-funded projects which need to be implemented under the province.

On behalf of the Gender Mainstreaming Steering Committee — constituted for ensuring the implementation of the policy, K-P Commission on the Status of Women (K-PCSW) Chairperson Riffat Sardar remarked that the provincial government and the SWWED were fully committed with a strong resolve to cooperate with, and support other government departments at every level so that together they can effectively contribute to gender equality and women empowerment in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2019.