Over the last two years, out of 18,000 house lots, 8,000 have been assigned to women as sole applicants, according to Minister in the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues.
Rodrigues made the disclosure during her keynote address at the third annual Founders’ Dinner of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry Guyana (WCCIG), at the Pegasus Hotel last evening while making the argument that the administration of President Irfaan Ali has made significant advances in creating gender parity.
A release from the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) said that referencing the 2022 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum, the Minister stated that Guyana ranked 35th out of 146 countries on gender parity. This she noted is 18 places higher compared to Guyana’s 53rd position in 2021 and accomplished in just one year of governance.
“When you see women achieving all of the things they are achieving it’s because we have the right policies [and] the right programmes. These things don’t happen by accident,” said Rodrigues. The release said that she added, “when crafting a policy you have to think about how this benefits everyone but more so you have to put an emphasis on vulnerable groups and women fall into that category, people with disabilities and young people.”
In terms of Economic Participation and Opportunity, Guyana is currently 53rd, compared to 105th in 2021, the release stated.
Since acceding to office in 2020, the release said that the administration had allocated over 18,000 house lots by the end of October 2022. Rodrigues noted that approximately 8,000 (44%) of these allocations were women, who were sole applicants. Meanwhile, allocations to women with joint applications stood at 5,137 (28%). It was further stated that the New Building Society (NBS) and Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) have loaned $17.3 billion and $4.4 billion respectively, to women for mortgages and commercial purposes.
“We’ve come from a period in history where women had no rights. We didn’t have the right to vote. We went through the Suffragette Movement so that women could be allowed to vote. Women could not own land, now more and more women are owning land, owning their own homes and owning their own businesses. And that’s because too you have a climate here in Guyana created by the Government, the PPP/C Government, that is private sector friendly and that’s because we understand the importance that the private sector plays in any country,” Rodrigues stated.
Highlighting a number of other initiatives by the Government to develop women, the Minister spoke of the recently inked carbon credits agreement with Hess Corporation that will see US$112 million injected into Amerindian communities. She said that a number of Amerindian households, which are headed by women will be directly impacted.
The release said that she applauded WCCIG for its role in creating a space for the social and economic development of women and encouraged more public and private sector organizations to play their role to stimulate equality.
