The Coun­cil for Hu­man and So­cial De­vel­op­ment (COHSOD) is ex­pect­ed to ap­prove the re­cent­ly de­vel­oped CARI­COM Gen­der Equal­i­ty Strat­e­gy (CGES) when it meets on Wednes­day.

The strat­e­gy, spear­head­ed by Ann-Marie Williams, Deputy Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, Gen­der De­vel­op­ment at the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at, is guid­ed and in­formed by a se­ries of in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights com­mit­ments, re­gion­al poli­cies and frame­works, and oth­er gen­der equal­i­ty in­stru­ments that out­line the Re­gion’s com­mit­ments to ad­vanc­ing hu­man de­vel­op­ment and gen­der-eq­ui­table out­comes.

The strat­e­gy is ti­tled, ‘Step­ping It Up: A Strat­e­gy to Achieve Gen­der Equal­i­ty in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty’ and its ap­proval would be sig­nif­i­cant as it comes just days af­ter the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at joined the world in cel­e­brat­ing Oc­to­ber 11, In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Girl Child, a state­ment for the Sec­re­tari­at said.

“In the past, girls were of­ten in­vis­i­ble or left out of the con­ver­sa­tion on youth de­vel­op­ment,” stat­ed the Deputy Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, “but it was the 1995 Bei­jing De­c­la­ra­tion and plat­form for ac­tion that recog­nised the im­por­tance of the girl child.

“Pro­tec­tion and de­vel­op­ment of the girl child was one of the twelve-point ac­tions or pil­lars that coun­tries had signed on to and agreed to im­ple­ment pro­grammes to im­prove the lives of women and girls.”

Williams un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the strat­e­gy to the de­vel­op­ment of Caribbean girls and the syn­er­gy with this year’s theme for In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Girl Child – ‘In­vest in Girls’ Rights: Our Lead­er­ship, Our Well-be­ing’.

She ex­plained that the de­c­la­ra­tion sub­se­quent­ly re­sult­ed in the Unit­ed Na­tions de­clar­ing 11 Oc­to­ber as sig­nif­i­cant for ac­tiv­i­ties that pro­mote the pro­tec­tion and de­vel­op­ment of the girl child.

Ms. Williams al­so un­der­scored that the ob­ser­vance is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant now, as many of the gains made to in­crease op­por­tu­ni­ties for girls and to pro­tect their sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health and rights have de­clined in re­cent years, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic.

“This year’s theme is ide­al as it ad­vo­cates for the rights of girls to pro­tec­tion, ed­u­ca­tion and health,” she stat­ed, adding that “when girls are sup­port­ed and ed­u­cat­ed, they have the po­ten­tial to change the world.

“By em­pow­er­ing girls to use their po­ten­tial to change the world, we will all have bet­ter fu­tures. When women thrive, all of so­ci­ety ben­e­fits. Women ac­count for 49.74% of the World’s pop­u­la­tion. We ig­nore them at our own detri­ment.”

The Deputy Pro­gramme Man­ag­er said this year’s theme aligns with key as­pects of the CGES, stat­ing that “the strat­e­gy is an­chored by the girl child…specif­i­cal­ly, the ap­proach­es that can be utilised for the pro­tec­tion, ed­u­ca­tion and over­all de­vel­op­ment of girls. This is a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment for the Re­gion.”

In ad­di­tion, the Deputy Pro­gramme Man­ag­er em­pha­sised that the CGES pro­vides a roadmap for Mem­ber States to pro­vide a re­gion­al co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach to achieve gen­der equal­i­ty and em­pow­er all women and girls. Its prin­ci­pal goal: To ac­cel­er­ate the ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of pri­or­i­ty ac­tions through a re­gion­al co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach to achieve gen­der equal­i­ty and em­pow­er all women and girls, aligns with Goal 5 of the 2030 Agen­da for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment.

It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that the CGES will re­ceive ap­proval and com­men­da­tion at the up­com­ing COHSOD-Gen­der with the over­ar­ch­ing goal of ad­vanc­ing the pro­tec­tion and de­vel­op­ment of girls across the Re­gion.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Oc­to­ber 15, CMC –