Project profile — Promoting Employment for Women

• Pakistan (100.00%)

• Secondary Education: Vocational training (11330) (68.86%)
• Democratic participation and civil society:
Democratic participation and civil society (15150) (21.14%)
Media and free flow of information (15153) (10.00%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project aims to improve income-earning opportunities and employment conditions for women and men in Pakistan by supporting skills for employment, improved access to business start-ups, responsible business practices, and the development of institutional arrangements conducive to strengthening women’s role in the national economy. The project works to strengthen government mechanisms for promoting equal employment opportunities for women and men. Working with Pakistan's Ministry of Labour at the national, provincial, and district levels, the project supports the Ministry's efforts to ensure that legislation, policies, and programs promote gender equality in employment opportunities in Pakistan. At the same time, the project works with the media and private sector to raise awareness about gender equality in the workplace, promote human resource policies that address the needs of working women, and link the private sector to career development centres. Project activities include (1) providing technical assistance and support institutional reform to strengthen national mechanisms to promote equal employment opportunities for women; (2) providing skills for employment and entrepreneurship support to up to 6,000 women; and (3) providing training and technical assistance for media stakeholders on issues related to women’s work and their economic empowerment.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) strengthening national mechanisms to promote equal employment opportunities for women; (2) enhancing skills and employability of poor women in rural and urban areas in selected districts; and (3) strengthening the capacity of the media to raise awareness on issues related to working women.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (October 2016) include: (1) 9,281 women from low-income backgrounds completed vocational training, with over 80% of these graduates becoming employed; (2) over 1,500 women and men given specialized enterprise development training, leading to increased business development opportunities and an increase between 100% and 500% of their incomes; (3) 331 journalists from 35 districts across Pakistan completed training on Gender Responsive Reporting, resulting in over 100 news reports on women and labour issues; (4) advocacy from International Labour Organization and trained journalists helped push for the establishment of an online complaints mechanism to address workplace harassment under the Federal Ombudsman’s Office; and (5) five Gender Units were established under the provincial Department of Labour (DOL) in each of the provinces of Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and for the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. These units helped institutionalize gender-responsive budgeting and decent work and labour inspection protocols. As a result, each provincial DOL was able to conduct gender-sensitive systematic labour inspections linked to relevant laws, such as the law against workplace harassment. Additionally, activities under the project (6) helped facilitate the registration of 200 home-based women workers with the Pakistan Workers’ Federation (PWF), where they learned about workers’ rights, organizing and collective bargaining; and (7) approximately 367 DOL officials across all provinces were trained on gender mainstreaming concepts, such as gender-responsive budgeting, gender-responsive labour inspection, participatory gender audit methodology and analysis of labour force survey data to generate reports on market information and trends. These results have contributed to improving the income-earning opportunities and employment conditions for women and men across Pakistan, and to strengthen the capacities of provincial Departments of Labour in applying a gender lens to their analysis of market trends and the workforce, data collection and labour practices. It also helped uphold women’s rights in the workforce, including their rights to a harassment-free work environment.

• Proactive disclosure