08 Jun 2017

Australia’s High Commissioner to Botswana, Mr Adam McCarthy says empowering women to participate in the economy was smart economics.

Speaking at a workshop on gender and development recently, Mr McCarthy said if women were able to actively participate in the economy, including the formal labour market, there would be prosperity.

He said elevating women to positions of leadership would contribute to better governments, economies and communities because of different perspectives and insights.

Mr McCarthy said education and training were critical to give women knowledge, skills and the self-confidence they needed to earn an income, higher paying jobs as well as starting their own businesses.

“Even when better educated, women around the world still spend significantly more time than men looking after children, cooking, managing the home, caring for relatives and handling other households responsibilities,” he said.

Furthermore, he noted that household chores limited the time they had available to participate in educational programmes and undertake income earning activities.

He said violence against women limited their ability to participate in social, economic, cultural and political activities.

In that regard, he said Australia like Botswana and other countries in southern African had made progress on promoting women empowerment and seeing women assume leadership positions.

Mr McCarthy said Australia was committed to women empowerment projects and placed it at the heart of all their development efforts.

On other issues, Mr McCarthy said there was a need to mobilise all available resources to ensure peace and prosperity in Botswana, Australia and the world.

Department of Gender Affairs director, Ms Thapelo Phuthego said Botswana has demonstrated commitment to the promotion of gender equality particularly to women and the girl child.

She said the country has registered significant progress on initiatives geared towards empowering women since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adding that the progress included improvements in the health sector, education for women and girls which had resulted in literacy levels of 98 per cent amongst women. ENDS