Gender Sensitization in Greening the National Industry: Training Workshop in Ukraine

In 2020, Ukraine was ranked the 59th out of 153 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report that is annually produced by the World Economic Forum.[1] Over the last decade, Ukraine made substantial progress in terms of women’s representation in politics, as women’s share among the Members of Parliament increased from 6% to 21%. The new Election Code (in force since 1 January 2020 and ongoing until the next elections scheduled for 2024) established the 40/60 gender quota in party electoral lists.[2]

Gender pay gap is slightly decreasing, from about 27% in 2011 to 21% in 2019. However, it is still higher in men-dominated sectors of the economy such as the IT, construction, and financial sectors. The share of women/girls studying engineering at universities is 21%, which is largely due to gender stereotypes on women’s and men’s role in society and “preferred professions” that are still widespread in the country.[3] With women spending almost 2 times more hours on house chores and care work than men (29 vs. 15 hours a week on average), women face additional barriers to job market participation, entrepreneurship, and political representation. The domestic and care work burdens on women have further increased due to the lockdown associated with COVID-19: 63.6 % women spend more time on household chores, 74 % mostly providing childcare on their own[4]. The share of companies with women’s participation is below 30 %, and gender gap in the labour force participation rate is as high as 16 % (47 % of women, 63 % of men, data of 2019 Gender Inequality Index).[5]

Nevertheless, Ukraine has sound gender policies. It ratified all the UN instruments in the field of gender equality and launched a special law on gender equality (in 2005). Currently, three National Action Plans on gender equality and women’s rights are in force, encompassing all the commitments that the Government made with regards to gender equality. With several sectorial action plans and regional action plans available in all 24 regions of the country, Ukraine has a solid framework for action to address existing gender imbalances. Moreover, the Government actively engages with the international development partners to seek their support in mainstreaming gender across all the development sectors and creates a room for agencies like UNIDO to contribute to gender transformations in Ukraine with their technical support and expertise.

Within the gender mainstreaming umbrella, the training took place on 25-26 November. Representatives from enterprises, RECP centre specialized organizations and other relevant stakeholders interested in gender issues joined the 2-day online training hosted by the RECP Centre in Ukraine. The Centre  has a firm and long-standing experience in promoting gender equality, with the share of women making up 44% of the overall staff of the Centre. Since 2013, 325 trainees (including 114 women) have been trained through the projects of the Centre on the RECP methodology and have become RECP experts. The Centre also endows several gender-based publications, such as the recent issue on women’s role in Inclusive Sustainable Development.

[1] The UNIDO National Implementing Partners (NIPs) of the Circular Economy and New Growth Opportunities component of the EU4Environment Action.

Meeting documents:

Agenda

[1] World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2020, https://www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality.

[2] Gender monitoring of the 2014 parliamentary elections, (Kyiv: Women’s Consortium of Ukraine, 2014), p. 42. Cited in Gender Analysis Report USAID/Ukraine, April 2017, p. 51

[3] ILO. Global Wage Report 2018/19, What lies behind gender pay gaps, 2018/19, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/—publ/documents/publication/wcms_650553.pdf

[4] UN Women Ukraine. Rapid gender assessment of the situation and needs of women in the context of COVID-19 in Ukraine, May 2020, https://eca.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/05/rapid-gender-assessment-of-the-situation-and-needs-of-women

[5] UNDP, 2019, Gender Inequality Index, http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-5-gender-inequality-index-gii

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