KABUL - The United Nations in Afghanistan celebrates International Women’s Day today, which in 2017 is being marked globally under the theme of “Women in the Changing World of Work.” With this day, the UN is making a universal call for women’s participation in all professions and highlighting their essential contributions in all spheres of work.

This theme is extremely relevant to Afghanistan. The country has made significant and important progress on this agenda in the last 15 years, but it is crucial that continued progress is made toward equal workplace participation for all. It is encouraging that the government has developed measures to advance women’s participation and protect them from harm. Those measures must be fully implemented so that greater numbers of women can meaningfully participate in the workforce.

The Afghan government has pledged to increase the presence of women in government institutions to 30 per cent by the year 2020. Currently, women’s participation countrywide is far below this target. The UN is encouraged by the representation of Afghan women in public life, including within Ministries, Parliament and civil society, but the effort should be doubled to ensure that women’s voices are heard in public life and women are members of key decision-making bodies.

The UN welcomes the government’s launch of the economic empowerment program for women today as a key step forward to opening more doors for women’s participation at all levels, and encourages the government to continue to prioritize investment in education, healthcare and business financing for Afghan women to help reduce the gap between women’s and men’s labour force participation, leading to greater economic growth across all sectors of society.

The UN family in Afghanistan is working diligently to help reverse inequality and support Afghan women and men expand opportunities for women.

“Women’s economic empowerment is a crucial precondition to effectively address poverty, inequality and violence against women,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. “While much progress has been made, many women continue to face economic and social barriers to meaningful employment as well discrimination in the workplace and in other areas of life.”

For real change, said the UN envoy, this essential agenda must be a priority. “Empowering Afghan women will allow them to share their voice and exert influence on matters of national concern, including in development, politics and most importantly peace,” he said.

The UN in Afghanistan supports the government’s stated efforts to strengthen the implementation of gender commitments in compliance with Afghanistan’s international obligations, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the recently adopted Global Agenda 2030, which includes the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The message, “Planet 50-50 by 2030,” reflects the UN goal of women’s equal participation in the workforce by the year 2030. Around the world, women continue to participate with men in labour markets on an unequal basis. Globally, women are paid less than men for the same work, and women in most countries earn, on average, only 60 to 75 per cent of men’s wages. While more than 70 per cent of all working-age men work, only 50 per cent of women work. Also, women’s unpaid child care work is an unacknowledged contribution that most often also allows men to work and earn money.

“While progress has been made over the last decade to protect women’s rights and address violence against women, we recognize there can be no impact unless laws are known, implemented and enforced,” said Shruti Upadhyay, Acting Country Representative of UN Women.

Ms Upadhyay went on to say that Afghanistan’s national and local policies must be strengthened in tandem with government and civil society advocacy to change perceptions towards working women in a way that creates capacity-building initiatives, workforce opportunities, and equal access to finance and markets.