UNDP holds policy dialogue on women’s mobility

LAHORE – Aligned with the commitment to support the Punjab government in upholding gender equality for equitable and sustainable development, UNDP Pakistan, through its Punjab SDGs Support Unit, organised a policy dialogue on women’s mobility and a motorbike rally of girls trained through its Women-on-Wheels (WoW) programme.

The dialogue engaged policymakers, SDGs experts, sector specialists, representatives of government, private sector, academia, and civil society to work together on enhancing women’s mobility, increasing autonomy, and reclaiming public spaces to close the gender gap across the province.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary Women’s Development Department Sumaira Samad said, “Gender equality is foremost a right and essential to achieving social, economic, and human development. A cross-cutting and highly crucial goal, SDG 5 Gender Equality, is the cornerstone for closing the gender gap and achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. It is especially urgent to address and actively work towards this as Pakistan recently ranked as the second worst country in the world for women on the Global Gender Gap Report 2022. As per the Global Gender Gap Report 2022, women’s labour-force participation in Pakistan declined by 1.9 percentage points in 2022 with Pakistani women making up the smallest share of senior, managerial and legislative roles (4.5%).”

Through its Women on Wheels (WoW) programme, the Punjab SDGs Unit provided motorcycle training to 180 girls across Lahore to create a long-lasting sustainable impact on the lives of women and girls to increase their mobility, independence, and visibility in public spaces. Providing this skill will enable women and girls to overcome mobility constraints that hinder them from accessing various education and employment opportunities. In addition to providing motorcycle lessons to the girls, the WoW program also imparted road safety training, anti-harassment training, licenses, and employment support.

“UNDP is a staunch advocate of gender equality and empowerment, a central outcome across all our programmatic commitments and partnerships. We celebrate the achievement of these 180 women and girls who trained to drive motorcycles across Lahore and hope that this cohort will set a benchmark to reduce Punjab’s gender gap through increased mobility, independence, and visibility across public spaces.,” said Ammara, Durrani, Assistant Resident Representative, and Chief, Development Policy Unit, UNDP Pakistan.

Other notable participants included Nada Azhar, Secretary, Punjab Commission for the Status of Women; Dr Hadia Majid, Associate Professor, LUMS; Lalarukh Khan, Program Manager Women’s Mobility, CERP; Mr. Zafar Mahmood Chaudhry, Sr. Vice President, Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industries; Ms Sam Ali Dada, Chairperson Central  Standing Committee Women Economic Reforms; Mr. M. Suleman, Director, Planning & Evaluation, Social Welfare Department, and Abid Saeed, CEO, Punjab Rural Support Program among others.

Followed by the policy dialogue, certificates were distributed to the women and girls who had received the training through the Women on Wheels (WoW) program. The event culminated in a Motorcycle Rally by the women and girls to showcase the skills they had acquired as a result of the training programme.