UNITED NATIONS: Highlighting the world’s “monumental challenges” of gender parity and climate change, Pakistan told the United Nations that climate policies pursued by Islamabad recognise women’s disadvantages and how they have to be facilitated in their productive, reproductive and care-giving roles.
“Climate change is one of the defining issues of our times,” said National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) chairperson Nilofar Bakhtiar, adding the phenomenon affects all states, peoples and communities.
“Our climate policies are paying attention to the plight of women and gender differentials that emerge from climate change and the vastly different experiences men and women have as workers, breadwinners, caregivers, patients and parents through climate-induced stress,” she added.
Ms. Nilofar Bakhtiar @NilofarBkhtiar chairman #NCSW 🇵🇰 speaking during the Ministerial Round Table – 66th Session of Commission on Status of Women today @UN
Watch live: https://t.co/VapDkP8FyC
— Permanent Mission of Pakistan to UN, NY (@PakistanUN_NY) March 14, 2022
The NCSW is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The priority theme for this year’s deliberations is “Climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies, and programmes: advancing gender equality through holistic and integrated actions from global to local”.
Bakhtiar also said that women in Pakistan were playing a role in all walks of life.
Pakistan, she said, has a “very strong and glorious” history of the women’s rights movement. Pakistan had its first female governor, Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, seven years after its independence; in 1965, Fatima Jinnah contested the presidential elections; and in 1988, Benazir Bhutto became the first woman prime minister in the Islamic world.
“In 2002, the government reserved 17 percent seats in the parliament and 33 percent at the grassroots level. Pakistan had its first female State Bank governor in 2005. Pakistan Army has had five women major generals and today, it has a woman lieutenant general,” she recalled.
Also, just recently, Pakistan’s first woman judge was elevated to the Supreme Court.
“We see women CEOs, footballers, swimmers, climbers, fighter pilots – women are everywhere, and in every walk of life,” Bakhtiar said.
“Our set of pro-women legislation is something we can boast about,” she said, pointing out that implementation is still a challenge.
Elaborating on climate change, Bakhtiar said Pakistan has the lowest carbon emissions, contributing virtually nothing to climate change, yet the country is one of the most severely impacted by climate change, with devastating consequences for the economy, lives, and people’s livelihoods.
In this regard, she said: “Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Billion Tree Tsunami Programme is a testimony to the fact that the will of the government (to fight climate change) is not lacking.”
The NCSW, Bakhtiar said, spent the last four months in consultations with women from various segments of the society in four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir regions and formulated a comprehensive country report on “Gender Parity: Women as Agents of Change”.
“Our progress can be attested by the fact that we have achieved SDG (Sustainable Developments Goal) 13 a decade earlier than its timeline”, the Pakistani delegate added.
“We are fully integrating a gender perspective in key sectors, primarily agriculture, economy, forest and biodiversity, coastal management, energy and transportation,” she said, emphasising that inclusion of women in decision-making processes is critical for effective climate action as they possess unique knowledge and experience, particularly at the local level.
Bakhtiar also said that developing countries need financial resources to mitigate the impact of climate change on their populations, in particular women.
“The international community should evolve mechanisms to fund programmes and projects for safeguarding the rights of women from the devastating impact of climate change and natural disasters.”
