By Joycelyn Williams
The third of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the UNDP is to promote gender equality and empower women. There are three special areas of interest as far as this equality is concerned: these are governance, participation and access to education and equality in employment.
We have made significant progress in all three areas over the last few years, particularly in the first two. Almost 30% of parliamentarians in Guyana are now female with women making equally scholarly and impactful contributions in the debates and otherwise in the work of the parliament. Guyana has even had a female deputy speaker in the person of the late attorney Debra Backer.
There is gender parity in primary and secondary education and it has been reported that there are twice as many women in tertiary education as men. Based on the foregoing one might have thought that this same parity would extend to the employment of women. This is not the case.
We need to make a few deliberate choices to have a little more gender equality in the area of employment not just for the sake of equality but because across the world, women have been sought after, in some key institutions to calm storms and bring a fresh approach to the world of business. We hope that this deliberate policy
