“The change is with women.” This is how it was titled in the project of the National Development Plan (PND) 2022-2026 the section that introduces a series of proposals with which the Government of Gustavo Petroaims to promote the social and economic inclusion of women.
From the National Planning Department It has been mentioned that the gender approach is a cross-cutting issue in the PND, and the project sets goals such as achieving 1.83 million placements for women through the Public Employment Service, achieve the formalization of 18,600 land titles for rural women, or that 50% of the positions at the managerial level in public entities are held by women.
(‘We disbursed $2 billion for 270,000 women’).
Particularly, article 57 of the project talks about the promotion of the autonomy and entrepreneurship of women, and for this purpose it proposes that the Women Undertaking Fundcreated in 2020, becomes the Fund for the Promotion of Women’s Autonomy and Entrepreneurship.
“The purpose of the Fund will be to design and implement actions and financial and non-financial instruments aimed at supporting and financing projects and initiatives” related to entrepreneurship, formalization and business strengthening.
(Colombia seeks to recognize unpaid care as work).
This Fund will be administered by the Vice Presidency and will count, as proposed by the National Development Plan, with resources from the General Budget of the Nationcontributions from public or private, national or international entities, or by individuals; national or international cooperation resources and donations.
Other measures in relation to women that the Plan proposes have to do with the creation of the National Program of Houses for the Autonomy of Women (article 274), which seeks to give access to programs, projects, services and actions that promote gender equity.
For Luz Karime Abbeyprofessor at the Faculty of Economics of the Javeriana universitymany of the gender gaps are created from an early age, in upbringing and education, therefore, he assures, it is ideal that policies be created that reduce the disadvantages that girls face in their training, to avoid additional inequalities in education higher education, the labor market and in other areas of life.
(The best companies with gender equality and diversity in Colombia).
Another measure with a gender focus in the Plan is in article 275, which promotes greater supervision of the land allocation program for rural women, in order to correct the inequitable distribution of property rights and favor women.
According to National Planning, “women will be at the center of the productive transformation and will seek to increase employment, permanence, remuneration, social protection and their leadership, particularly in sectors that represent growth bets for the country”.
Despite this, an analysis prepared by the National Women’s Network, an independent organization that participated in the Binding Regional Dialogues to build the Plan, He assured that only one of the five transformations of the Plan, that of human security, has a gender measure and that only 4% of the articles of the development plan have this approach.
Another issue that becomes relevant in the policy for women of the Government of Gustavo Petro is the creation of a National Care Systemcontained in article 86. And one of the goals proposed in the PND document is the reduction in the weekly hours that women heads of household dedicate on average to care work, so that they go from 22 to 19 hours on average.
(Men pollute more than women because of their income: study).
“The Plan talks about ‘change is with women’ and seeks to close gender gaps, care systems are one of the necessary strategies for that economic autonomy”, assured Ana Isabel Arenas, a member of the Bogotá feminist economics table.
According to the expert, said autonomy goes through two pillars: access to income and access to one’s own time, either to train or work in tasks that are not unpaid work.
“These goals are fine, but there is a small criticism of this indicator. The sexual division of labor has to be addressed, so that women are not the ones who continue to be there. It is important to talk about policies that help reduce the time they dedicate to these tasks, but in parallel, we must promote real redistribution”.
LAURA LUCIA BECERRA ELEJALDE
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