Jacob Thoppil, Director of International Cooperation (DFATD), Southeast Asia

Jacob Thoppil, Director of International Cooperation, overseeing Canada’s Bilateral Development Assistance in Indonesia and Regional Development Programming in Southeast Asia speaks about women’s empowerment and the change to be undertaken. A change to end discrimination against women in society begins with equal rights to life, liberty and security, but extends to equal participation of women and men in decisions making, equal access to education, skills and jobs, equal remuneration for equal work in the labour force, equal access to justice and protection under the law, specially protection from gender-based violence. Gender Equality continues to be a crosscutting theme throughout the Government of Canada’s programmes, and its results are systematically and explicitly integrated across all development investments– one of which is through Canada’s on-going collaboration with UN Women through the Department for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development’s Regional Programme on Improving Women’s Human Rights in Southeast Asia. The programme is aimed to increase knowledge and skills to apply the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) compliance in the development and monitoring of new and revised legislative frameworks; increased awareness among formal, semi-formal and informal justice system actors of CEDAW commitments; strengthened monitoring accountability mechanisms for implementation of CEDAW commitments. Women’s empowerment is about women’s ability to take control over their own lives, set their own agenda, gain skills, build self-confidence, solve problems and develop self-reliance. It is not only a collective social and political endeavor, but an individual process as well. Women’s empowerment is central to achieving gender equality.