Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury Chaired another Panel Discussion at the UN

Sharke Chaman Khan: The State Minister for Women and Children Affairs, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury endorsed women as the “Agents of Change” while she was chairing another panel discussion at one of the side events of the ‘Commission on the Status of Women’ (CSW) at the UN-HQ yesterday. The panel discussion entitled “Food Security, Agriculture and Rural Women: Challenges and Prospects” was jointly organized by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Progamme (WFP).While conducting the session Dr. Chaudhury said that women play the major role in food security. She stated that the role of women is multiple; they are food producers, processors, preparers. Women are involved in farming, forestry and fishery. She also mentioned that the economic contribution of women in this sector often goes unrecognized. The lack of access to resource, credit and land are major obstacles. She reiterated the importance on adequate support to women farmer by providing subsidies, seeds, fertilizers, equipment, training and technology.She also stated that the role of women in food security and agriculture must be brought to the centre of  policy formulation.

The panel discussed new findings regarding gender inequality in hunger and food insecurity. The ongoing effect of the global food crisis, the challenges in access to land, finance and markets were some of the themes that had been discussed. The discussion contributed to the identification of challenges, policies and best practices in view of the CSW 2012 priority theme of rural women.
Director Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division of FAO,Marcela Villarel; Technical Adviser, Gender and Social Equity of IFAD  Maria Hartl; Chief, Women, Children and Gender, Policy, Planning and strategy Division of WFP,  Isatou Jallow and Executive Director, the Construction Resource & Development Centre (CRDC), Jamaica  Carmen Griffiths participated the event as the Panelists.

Nicaragua’s Minister  Maria Rumir and Mongolia’s Minister  Gandhi represented their country while Bangladesh was represented by the Permanent Representative (PR) to the UN Dr. Momen. Bangladesh’s PR Dr. Momen invited other developing countries to share Bangladesh’s expertise in agriculture which was highly appreciated by the perticipants. Dr. Chaudhury conducted an interactive question answer session after the discussion. 

Dr. Chaudhury had a bilateral meeting with the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities of the Republic of South Africa, Ms. Lulu Xingwana at the UN yesterday evening. Dr. Chaudhury informed her about the vulnerable group feeding programmes and widow allowance, allowance for destitute women and for women with disabilities and different other programmes funded by the Government of Bangladesh.Dr. Chaudhury also made a statement at the 55th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women on agenda item 3 (Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and to the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled “Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century”) this morning. In her statement, the State Minister described how government’s Vision-2021 is committed in mainstreaming gender issues. She stated that economic empowerment of women is a high priority agenda of the government. Women is important agents of Bangladesh’s economic and social transformation, emphasis is being given on reducing feminization of poverty.   She described Bangladesh government’s different social safety net programmes in this regard.