TÜSİAD, in collaboration with the Ministry of Family and Social Policy and the World Bank organized a series of seminars on the “Gender Equality and Development”, under the title of “Anatolia, Step by Step”, in order to contribute to the efforts for creating awareness about the gender equality and participation of women in social life and particularly their participation to education and working life. The first in this series of seminars had been organized on March 17th, 2012, in Gaziantep with the participation of Ms. Fatma Şahin, Minister of Family and Social Policy.
The second seminar of the series, “Anatolia, Step by Step - Gender Equality and Development” was organized on June 28th, 2012, at the Hamamizade İhsan Bey Cultural Center in Trabzon.
Opening speeches of the seminar were delivered by Ms. Aşkın Asan, Deputy Minister of Family and Social Policy, Ms. Azize Sibel Gönül, Chairperson of the Woman-Man Equal Opportunity Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Mr. Recep Kızılcık, Governor of Trabzon, Mr. Cenk Çimen, Member of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD and President of the Social Affairs Commission, and Mr. Martin Raiser, World Bank Country Director for Turkey.
In his speech Mr. Cenk Çimen reminded that the issue of gender equality ascribes important responsibility to everyone and he said that “as we look upon Turkey at the beginning of 21st century, we observe that we are an important global actor, but unfortunately we also notice that various development processes doesn’t follow our economic success at the same pace. According to the figures of 2011, Turkey ranks 92nd position among 187 countries in the human development index. If we consider women’s economic participation, Turkey is fourth to last among 135 countries. Turkey targets to become one of the greatest economies in the year of 2023. But this is impossible to achieve without changing the situation about the human development index and about the gender equality. As one of the pillar of the sustainable development, gender equality rank in priority among our problems.”
In the first session of the seminar, successful local examples of women in education and entrepreneurship were described with the participation of the representatives of the supporting institutions. In the following panel discussion, Ms. Nur Ger, Chair of TÜSİAD Gender Equality Working Group made a speech.