Statement by Gary Lewis UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative at the launch of the APRACA Centre of Excellence on Women s Empowerment Bank Keshavarzi Tehran Saturday 30 August Dr Talebi, Chairman and CEO of Bank Keshavarzi, Ambassador Bizmark, Director General, Multilateral Economic Cooperation at MFA, Dr Nejadi, Representative of H.E. Dr Molaverdi, Khun Chamnong Siriwongyotha, newly-appointed Secretary-General of APRACA, Dr. Farzin Motamed, Head of Women s empowerment Division of Bank Kaehavarzi. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, My first job today, on behalf of the UN family, is to add my voice to those of the other speakers in welcoming all participants especially those who have travelled from far to be with us to Tehran. It is a great pleasure to attend the opening ceremony of a series of events organized by Bank Keshavarzi on Women s Economic Empowerment.
These events are also closely tied to the start-up of the Bank Keshavarzi s fourth Centre of Excellence on Women s Economic Empowerment and its first one in Iran. The United Nations is pleased to partner with the Bank in this initiative. Indeed, the UN is engaged with the Bank through two initiatives. The first is the UNIDO project on saffron marketing in Khorassan Razavi. The second is the UNDP Green Banking project. I sincerely hope that discussions over the next few days, both here and in Zanjan where the main workshops will be held will provide a timely and profound contribution to help drive the process of development planning and credit allocations to promote women s economic empowerment in Iran. I also hope that our proceedings will be able to finalize a plan of action for effective work by the Centre of Excellence over the next few years. Why is this important? As you know, the Millennium Development Goals place great emphasis on the role of women in the development process. 2
Goal number 3 specifically promotes the empowerment of women. It especially calls for the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education. However, setting gender-responsive targets and indicators only in maternal health and female education is not sufficient. Women must also be engaged in productive employment. This gives them economic options. And it also enables them to contribute to national growth and development. In many societies, female participation rates in the formal labour market rise well above 50%. This translates into sustained capacity for women to access more choices both for themselves and their families. Iran is, of course, a country which has successfully ensured the access of women to education at all levels and to comprehensive health services. According to UNDP s Human Development Index, in three areas those of life expectancy at birth, years of schooling and completion of secondary education, women in Iran have done as well or even better than women in similar high HDI countries. Importantly, the majority of the new entrants to universities in Iran are young women. And as Dr. Talebi has indicated in his statement, when they get there, they excel at a number of levels. But challenges to women s economic empowerment and employment in the Iranian labour market remain. And they need to be recognized. 3
National statistics tell us: o that formal participation of women in the labour market is less than 20% of the workforce; o that women s unemployment is well over 30% o and that, as some independent researchers believe, 40% of this category of women may have been out of work for more than two years. These are real constraints to women s empowerment and thereby to national development. That is why I believe the series of workshops and seminars starting today will help to improve the way Iranian institutions support women s economic empowerment, especially that of vulnerable rural women. What does the UN (and specifically UNDP, for which I am also the Resident Representative) do to support women s empowerment? Ladies and Gentlemen, we all need to play a role in driving women s economic empowerment. And this includes UNDP, whose mandate is to support Iran, as a respected Member State of the United Nations, in its development goals. 4
As a development partner, UNDP has always been concerned with the empowerment of vulnerable groups, such as the poorer and the younger members of society. UNDP has consistently tried to support the Government in its efforts to meet the challenge of women s economic empowerment through improved public-private-community partnerships. We have proposed specific development policy measures and interventions for both mainstreaming gender-sensitive budgeting, and by recommending targeted interventions for example results-based planning. Our current Country Programme which has been agreed with the Government is anchored in the priorities of Iran s 5 th National Development Plan. One of these priorities is to support women s economic empowerment and thereby contribute to the larger goal of growth with justice In fact, over the years, UNDP in Iran has been promoting employment generation for poor women through many of our projects. These projects use the social mobilization and micro-credit method, which is operationalized through the formation of village development groups. More than 100 such groups have now been formed mainly in desert areas. 5
In one such initiative, the Carbon Sequestration project, the above (village development group) method is being replicated by the Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Organization and is being expanded to fifteen provinces. Project authorities indicate that nearly 1000 rural women have joined so far in such schemes. This method has now been documented in our joint Green Banking project with Bank Keshavarzi and is also available here as two separate publications of the new Centre of Excellence. But your role today here is important. I sincerely hope that seminar participants will come up with a practical action plan on how this new Centre of Excellence can work effectively over the next few years, in order to improve the wellbeing of marginalized and vulnerable women in Iran. We must also design and develop standards and operating procedures for the whole APRACA (the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agriculture Credit Associaiton) community for which the Centre will serve as as a Secretariat. I would like to conclude by once again warmly thanking the organizers of this series of events, especially Dr Talebi and Dr Farzin-Motamed. They have each put in a significant effort for this undertaking. 6
I would like to convey to them on behalf of the United Nations family and indeed on behalf of all of us our very sincere appreciation for this excellent initiative. Kheily motashakeram. 7