Good morning and thank you for being here today.
The reason which brought all of us here this morning is the passing of the Gender Inclusiveness Policy on 9 January 2019. It was announced by the Chief Minister on 16 January 2019 and there will be an official launch of the policy on 7th March 2019 with state agencies and departments.
You may ask, why the need for the Gender Inclusiveness Policy. Well, according to the Department of Statistics, Malaysia Gender Gap Index (MGGI) 2017 released in November 2018, it has clearly shown that while Malaysia had managed to narrow the gender equality gap in terms of education and health, we are still lacking behind in economic and political empowerment.
The gender gap across the world widened for the first time in a decade in 2017, as the situation worsened for women. At the current rate, women are not likely to reach economic parity with men until 2234, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). In its annual gender gap report, the WEF raised the amount of time it will take to close inequality between the sexes to 217 years.
A year ago, WEF said it would take 170 years to achieve full gender equality around the world. The WEF said the gender gap had worsened for the first time since it started recording the situation in 2006. What is obvious is that if no action is taken, it will take many more generations for us to achieve gender equality. It is not affecting only you and me, but also our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren and so on and so forth. Thus, it is inevitable as a responsible government, Penang has taken the bold step to put a policy in place to address some of these gaps.
This Gender Inclusiveness policy aims to provide a clear and consistent framework for the Penang State Government to ensure everyone has equal opportunity to participate and benefit from State’s programmes and projects; therefore, reduce inequalities.
The GI policy works on institutionalising GI into state policy in terms of project planning, implementation, and revision through practices by all state agencies and departments. It also ensures a gender balanced environment is created within the state government by providing all staff regardless of their gender the opportunity to participate in administrative, management and decision-making roles at all levels.
A gender balanced management approach will be adopted by the state which aims to reach the composition of 40% women, 40% men and the other 20% which will be open to both men and women thus avoiding single-gender compositing more than 60% and avert a single-gender dominated decision-making system. Having both women and men in decision making process will ensure that both needs are taken into consideration and addressed.
Lastly, GRPB (Gender Responsive and Participatory Budgeting) will be implemented in all aspects of governance, including project planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation process at all state government departments and agencies.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today’s Focus Group Discussion session is organised to ensure the successful implementation of the GI Policy. This session aims to gather key stakeholders, that is people in this room, who have experience with GRPB and gain inputs to identify:
- Plan of Action (PoA)and indicators of the six Implementation Strategies as stipulated in the policy;
- The roles and responsibilities of implementing agencies and departments;
- Barriers and solutions to the implementation of the GI Policy.
By the end of today’s session, we shall determine essential messaging to be incorporated into YAB Chief Minister’s GI Policy ‘Set Direction and Gain Alignment’ session with stakeholders on 7th March 2019. Please note that your valuable input will also be used for our upcoming capacity building workshops for implementers of this Gender Inclusiveness Policy. Thus, you play a critical role in the successful roll-out of the Gender Inclusiveness Policy.
Thank you.