Gender equality still a far cry: Stakeholders

Lalitpur, Mar. 6

Women and stakeholder organisations on Sunday said that society has not witnessed gender equality as per the ongoing discourse.

Speaking at a policy dialogue programme on 'Gender equality for sustainable future: In the context of climate change' organised by the National Planning Commission (NPC) on the occasion of 112^th International Women's Day, they said that good policies have remained on papers but failed to yield impressive results.

They stressed on considering women issues while formulating policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation since women are among the first to be affected by it.

Lila Devi Gadtaula, Secretary of Nepal Law Commission, said that the country has failed in the promotion of the legal and policy provision for women. "The commission has recommended the government to establish a legal awareness centre to look into such issues. Most of the women do not seek legal help because they don't know about the legal provision and their fundamental rights and priorities," she said.

Chairperson of the Federation of Community Forest Users' Group of Nepal (FECOFUN), Bharati Pathak, said that climate change, deforestation and extreme exploitation of natural resources have impacted women to a great deal. However, while an impressive size of budget is allocated for women and their programmes, women at the grassroots level couldn't be benefitted from them, she said.

Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Niru Dahal Pandey said that the country needed a climate-smart agriculture policy to address the impact of climate change on agriculture. Since agriculture has become increasingly a women-oriented occupation, the government should formulate budget considering this factor, she said.

Bharati Silwal Giri, Founding Member of Intergenerational Feminist Forum, said that the scenario of women representation and resource sharing has been gradually changing. "Nepal has been practicing gender-responsive budget since 2000 and is the leader in the South Asian region. The size of gender responsive budget in 2019/20 was 31 per cent which is a progress from 1 per cent in 2007/08," she said.

About 9.93 per cent women are represented within the forestry related policy making bodies. However, Giri maintained that monitoring of the implementation of women-related policies is important.

According to her, women in business are more vulnerable to disasters and pandemic like COVID-19, such as most of the home-stays are operated by women and they are among the worst-hit sectors by the disease.

Secretary of the NPC, Kewal Prasad Bhandari said that it is the time the government should pay attention to creating a segregation-free society along with prioritising physical development. 

  Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 7 March 2022.