MINISTER | AMONGI | WOMEN

NEW YORK - Gender minister Betty Amongi has led a Ugandan delegation to the 67th session of the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York.  

The conference taking place at the UN headquarters, which started on March 6 and is expected to end on Friday, is structured under the theme: Innovation and Technological Change, and Education in the Digital Age for Achieving Gender Equality and the Empowerment of all Women and Girls.

Amongi takes over from gender state minister Peace Regis Mutuuzo who has been the alternate head of delegation when the first delegation arrived in New York before Women’s Day. 

The current session will also review the agreed conclusions of the 62nd session, which looked at the challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls. 

Some of the Uganda-centered discussions will include side events on creating solutions, partnerships and synergies for a gender-responsive digitally driven legal industry in Uganda; Uganda’s experience of making digitisation work for women and markets, and challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls. 

Other topics will revolve around higher education and civil society collaboration for the technological advancement of girls and women; women’s agency in post-conflict reconciliation in Uganda; developing a policy that supports career progression for women in engineering/science fields; expanding and reducing the coast of broadband; intensifying women’s functional adult literacy skills and putting in place counter strategies an mechanisms for cyber harassment and blackmail.

Among those on the Ugandan delegation is Third Deputy Prime Minister Rukia Isanga Nakadama, Minister for the Presidency Milly Babalanda, gender ministry permanent secretary Aggrey David Kibenge, a host of Members of Parliament and top officials from civil society organisations.  

In her first briefing with the team, Amongi implored the delegation to keep President Yoweri Museveni’s women’s Day key message on developing programmes that help households fight poverty and increase incomes. 

She revealed that she will also be meeting the World Bank team in New York on the implementation of the shillings 800 billion Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) project that was launched by President Museveni in Kiruhura district during International Women's Day.