Vientiane, Lao PDR, 14 September 2020 - Women and girls, everywhere, must have equal rights and opportunity, and be able to live free of violence and discrimination. Women’s equality and empowerment is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, but also integral to all dimensions of inclusive and sustainable development. In short, all the SDGs depend on the achievement of Goal 5.

Part of ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in political, economic and public life is  investing in capacity building to equip women with the necessary competencies they need in the fulfilment of their roles. Under this area, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) with support of UNFPA conducted Women’s empowerment and effective communication skills training for 33 senior staff of MPI. It was held from 10-11 Sep at MPI office.

The workshop aims to: i) Sensitize on the importance of women’s participation, leadership, and decision making, ii) Equip women leaders with effective communication skills, iii) Share examples of successful stories of women leaders and how they could influence and make a positive impact for other women’s lives. When women are meaningfully represented and engaged in leadership bodies (like courts, executive boards, or community councils) laws, rulings, decisions are more likely to be inclusive, representative, and take diverse views into account.

To achieve the objectives of enhancing not only knowledge but also skills and confidence of the participants, the training sessions will employ a variety of participatory methods such as interactive discussions, group work and practical exercises. Women senior officials from the Government agencies, who have attended several Leadership Programme under the support of the Australian Government will be invited to share their experience with the participants.

“The training is very useful for me as well as to other MPI colleagues who attended. I want to have similar training where more male senior staff of MPI attend to have the opportunity to understand gender equality and women empowerment in order to better advocate for these rights.”, Mr. Phongsamuth Khamvanvongsa, Acting Director of Cabinet, MPI.

 “I am very lucky to have opportunities for skills building.  We learned real successful experiences on women’s empowerment from a valued invited speaker. In the future I would like to request UNFPA to continue and support complementary trainings in other areas related to women’s empowerment and gender equality to curry on our job with the most suitable knowledge on the population needs”, Madam Thamma phetvixay, Director of Department of Personnel, President of Lao Women’s Union of MPI

The training was focus on: Women and resilience, the meaning of leadership, purpose and values, Inspiring women into leadership, Communication, networking and influencing skills, River of life, foundation for gender equitable human resource development. Ms. Khamchanh Vongsengboun, H.E Vice minister of MPI co-chaired the training with Ms. Mariam A. Khan, UNFPA Representative to present the joint work  SDG 5 and gender equality in Lao PDR

For more information please contact:

Mr. Phonexay SITHIRAJVONGSA, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, UNFPA Lao PDR

Email: sithirajvongsa@unfpa.org

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UNFPA, the UN's sexual and reproductive health agency, works in over 150 countries including Lao PDR, to achieve zero maternal deaths, zero unmet need for family planning and zero gender-based violence and harmful practices towards women and girls.