BOGOTÁ, 20-23 September 2022 – With the financial support of Norway, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) delivered a Regional Training on Gender Equality and Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development for stakeholders from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

The hybrid training gathered 48 government focal points of UNIDO’s SDG9 accelerator platform, representatives from industry associations, UNIDO Field Offices and other industrial stakeholders from 14 countries in the region.

“The national government prioritizes the gender equality and sustainability agenda in all ministerial offices, and we are pleased to count on UNIDO in Colombia to support this road map.” said Sandra Aceroy, Director of SMEs at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of Colombia, during the opening ceremony of the training.

The training programme was co-delivered with Rutgers University, the University of Cambridge and UN Women. It covered six modules adapted to the regional context, including women’s representation in manufacturing, the gendered perspectives of the future of industry and technology, as well as how to promote gender equality within the workplace.

“We are convinced that the incorporation of the gender perspective is key to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean" said Cecilia Ugaz Estrada, Director of the Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women Unit of UNIDO. “There is an urgency to prioritize the participation of women in the areas of industry and sustainability”.

Participants learned how to carry out gender analyses to develop gender-responsive projects, programmes and policies. In some regions of the world, there is a significant policy gap to help address gender inequalities in industry. As an example, only 10% of energy policies in Latin America and the Caribbean make reference to gender and/or women (IUCN, 2017).

“It is necessary that the policies that we are implementing as governments adopt the gender perspective” said Ángel de Jesús Checo, Chief of the Department of Industrial Policy, Vice-Ministry of Industrial Development, Ministry of Industry, Commerce and MSMEs of the Dominican Republic. “What we learned is that it is also necessary that the statistics that we use to take decisions on evidence-based public policies have a gender perspective in a more cross-cutting manner.”

The modules of the Regional Training on Gender Equality and Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development for Latin America and the Caribbean are currently being developed into a self-paced e-learning to make them publically available. The training and its online version are made possible thanks to the financial support of the Government of Norway.

“The participants have founded a collaboration ecosystem for gender and industrialization, which we hope to formalize under the gender and youth accelerator of the SDG 9 platform. We hope they can share experiences on how to mainstream gender in their policies and programmes, and from UNIDO we stand ready to support them on this journey“, reflects Bettina Schreck, Rotational Gender Officer of the Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women Unit of UNIDO.

“The Government of Norway is committed to gender equality as a fundamental pillar of our international cooperation programmes” said Axel Weden, First Secretary of the Embassy of Norway in Colombia. “We are pleased to see the commitment from Colombia and UNIDO.”

In line with its Strategy for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, UNIDO will continue to deliver the training programme, particularly in regions that have yet to receive the training.

The recording of the LAC regional training is available on UNIDO’s YouTube channel.

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