HPM Sheikh Hasina emphasizes on implementing SDGs in gender responsive manner

"The idea of 'making every woman and girl count' reflects my own thoughts on women's empowerment and gender equality. As we pledge to leave no one behind, we must make a good case of implementing the SDGs in a gender-responsive manner," she said.

Sheikh Hasina was delivering her statement at the launching event of "Making Every Woman and Girl Count" organised by the government of Australia, UN-Women, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UN Foundation/Data2x at the UN Headquarters.

The prime minister said in Bangladesh, the performance of her government with gender-related MDGs was widely recognized as the number of women below poverty lines or without assets went down sharply.

"We've attained gender parity in primary and secondary school enrollment. Maternal mortality has dropped considerably to 1.7 per thousand live births . . . our social safety net programmes give wide coverage to old, widowed, women with disability, lactating and destitute women," she said.

Sheikh Hasina said her government was committed to keep the momentum, and go further beyond adding that the National Women Development Policy gave a sound blueprint for action.

"In order to track progress with its implementation, we've taken a host of monitoring and evaluation measures," she said. ?

Sheikh Hasina said that every year, her government presents a gender responsive budget to parliament along with the National Budget.

In the current fiscal, she said, 40 ministries reported on their works on women's advancement as allocation for women in the same fiscal is more than 27 percent when compared to total budget, and nearly 5 percent when compared to GDP.

"We recognize that quality and up-to-date gender data will be critical for this work. A sound database can help us understand the gains and gaps in our efforts to reach all our women and girls," she said.

Sheikh Hasina added: "It should also tell us how our men and boys can be made partners in those efforts. It is important that our planning, budgeting, monitoring and auditing institutions are equipped with the cost-effective tools to generate and process gender-sensitive data."

Noting that the public-private initiative which was launched here today sounds promising, she said, "This practical, action-oriented work can perhaps add another feather to our excellent cooperation with UN-Women and other partners,"

PM's ICT Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, PM's Principal Secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad and Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque were present, among others.