Minister of Social Development and Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Women’s Empowerment, Wafa Bani Mustafa, said that it is impossible to talk about ending poverty for women and girls without addressing women’s economic empowerment.
Bani Mustafa made these remarks during her participation in a ministerial roundtable at the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) on Tuesday, entitled “Mobilizing financing for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls: Policies and strategies to end women’s and girls’ poverty,” in New York.
She added that Jordan has launched the Economic Modernization Vision to improve the quality of life for citizens, and as a result, the Women’s Empowerment Strategy in the Economic Modernization Vision was launched, which aims to double women’s economic participation within ten years.
She reviewed the initiatives included in the strategy, including providing soft loans for women, supporting and encouraging the establishment of nurseries
for childcare, establishing e-stores for women, improving the infrastructure of the work environment related to women, promoting women’s participation in manufacturing industries, organizing women’s work in the informal sector, and providing transportation.
Bani Mustafa explained that the coverage under the social security umbrella has been expanded to include the informal sector and micro-enterprises, and the decision has been made to raise the early retirement age and introduce maternity insurance, in addition to the “Care” program – through which the Social Security Corporation bears the cost of paying for childcare in the nursery for 6 months in order to support working women in the private sector and provide social protection.
She added that the Ministry of Social Development is leading the official efforts in implementing the National Social Protection Strategy, explaining that the social strategy is comprehensive, responds to shocks and crises, and presents future visions for social protection. It is
essentially gender-sensitive and takes into account the needs of the most vulnerable groups.
The Ministry also implements many training and economic empowerment projects in community development centers, and projects to promote productivity to help women and families start projects that enable them to escape poverty.
She pointed out that through the National Aid Fund, the main social protection program, policies for integrating gender equality have been adopted, as the fund has identified 8 target groups for the repeated financial assistance program, which are women: widows of orphans, elderly women, those with permanent total disability and their families, alternative families, families of prisoners and detainees, families of the missing or missing, divorced women and their children, and women with no breadwinner.
Bani Mustafa emphasized that Jordan is committed to continuing this work to close the gender gap, expand the social safety net, and reduce the feminization of poverty.
Source: Jordan News Agen
cy