Kathmandu, September 22
Experts have highlighted the need to expand women and disadvantaged group’s participation in skills development programmes in Nepal, adding it is essential to address development needs of the country.
They say that severe inequality that exists in the society owing to discrimination against women, disadvantaged and minority groups have limited their right to enjoy political, economic, social and cultural rights, hence hampering Nepal’s efforts to achieve sustainable people-centred development.
Speaking at a workshop on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Nepal jointly organised by United Nations Development Programme’s Support to Knowledge and Lifelong Learning Skills and Nepal’s Ministry of Education, on Wednesday, UNDP Nepal’s Deputy Country Director Sophie Kemkhadze said that gender equality, inclusion and women’s empowerment are human rights issues and these are prerequisites if Nepal is serious about achieving all the sustainable development goals.
“Economically speaking also, the world is losing a huge opportunity for growth because not every woman is able to contribute to productive growth.”
Executive Director of Training Institute for Technical Instruction (TITI) Akim Shrestha said that GESI issues need to be strongly addressed in TVET subsector to help the country achieve its development goals.
Binda Magar, a GESI specialist at UNDP, talked about how promotion of gender equality, empowerment of women and social inclusion is central to the mandate of UNDP and also intrinsic to its development approaches in Nepal.
