Venue: Conference Hall, CDPR

Date: 28th April 2017, Friday

Time: 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm

Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) hosted its tenth Lahore Policy Exchange talk on “Gender Inclusion and Economic Participation.” While big foreign investments generate excitement for their potential to transform Pakistan’s economy, they will pale in comparison to the impact of women’s entry into the workforce. But currently women comprise only 25 percent of Pakistan’s labour force, revealing a large gender gap in employment. For Pakistan to enjoy the full benefits of increased women’s participation in the economy, the barriers women face to jobs and entrepreneurship need to be addressed. But what exactly are those barriers? What steps can both the public and private sectors take to remove them? These issues were discussed by three speakers at the event: Fauzia Viqar (Chairperson at the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women), Kate Vyborny (Post-doctoral Fellow at Duke University) and Fiza Farhan (Chairperson to Chief Minister Punjab’s Task Force on Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)). The discussion was moderated by Turab Hussain, Associate Professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Policy exchange dialogue took place at the end, when the question and answer session took place among the audience and the presenters.