ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal said that women play vital role in development of any country and development process remains slow where women are not given equal opportunities.

Addressing 19th Inter-Provincial Ministerial Group (IPMG) meeting organised by National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW) in collaboration with UN Women and Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) of US Department of State said that Islam has given equal rights to women but unfortunately, these rights were misinterpreted. He said Planning Commission has established Gender Unit in Ministry in which all development projects would be planned according to principles of gender responsiveness so that projects should not be approved without ensuring interests of women.

He assured NCSW to entertain their recommendations in order to implement them. Objective of 19th IPMG meeting was to understand data architecture at national and provincial levels and finalise data collection mechanisms for National Gender Data Portal. Chairperson NCSW Nilofar Bakhtiar said, "Global Gender Gap Report states Pakistan has closed gender gap by 56.4 percent but still ranks us at second lowest from bottom. It is important to know our ground reality to form law, legislation and quotas to bring change." Country Representative UN Women Pakistan Country Office, Sharmeela Rassool emphasised importance of credible data for development of country and for gender equality". "IPMG is an innovative platform for identifying solutions that are tailor-made for Pakistan. NGDP is one such example of such solution."

Published in The Daily National Courier, November, 04 2022

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