Prime Minister Hun Sen addressing at the second ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit hosted by Cambodia on October 13, with the theme “Building a More Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Future: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship in ASEAN”. SPM
Prime Minister Hun Sen, in his capacity as the rotating chair of ASEAN, made a four-point recommendation to the bloc on how to address the challenges faced by women and how to unlock the potential of female entrepreneurs by making it easier to seize new opportunities.
The premier was giving a keynote address at the second ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit hosted by Cambodia on October 13, with the theme “Building a More Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Future: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship in ASEAN”.
He said women will continue to play a significant role throughout ASEAN, especially in recovering from the pandemic fully and boosting sustainable, inclusive and resilient economic growth in the region.
However, he noted that women entrepreneurs in the region have faced many obstacles in enterprise development and management, especially in rural areas.
“Most women start businesses at micro or small scale as part of the informal sector and the vast majority of them have yet to be formally registered, making it hard for governments to identify them and provide the necessary support,” Hun Sen said.
He added that in order to address the challenges women entrepreneurs face and unlock their full potential, a business ecosystem that better responds to the needs of small- and medium-scale enterprises should be created and encouraged, and the legal frameworks and social mindsets that hinder the potential of women in the economy must be improved upon.
“Focus on human resource development, through up-skilling and re-skilling programs for women and girls, as well as science, technology, engineering and mathematics [STEM] programmes for them,” he recommended.
Hun Sen also urged ASEAN nations to make improvements to financial and digital inclusivity for women and girls through promoting financial and digital literacy and facilitating access to credit, markets and information about starting and developing businesses.
“Expand the coverage of the social protection system, family welfare protection policies and responses to family care and domestic work by women, as well as public investment in healthcare and social welfare,” he said.
According to the prime minister, medium and small enterprises in Cambodia account for 98 per cent of the total number of businesses and make up around 58 per cent of the national economy while creating around 73 per cent of total jobs, with women establishing and managing approximately 61 per cent of these firms.
Hun Sen said that the ASEAN region has high economic potential for rapid development mainly thanks to the active participation of women in most economies.
“The economies of ASEAN countries depend heavily on micro, small and medium enterprises led by women,” he noted.
Penny Wong, Australian Senator and Minister of Foreign Affairs, later addressed the summit remotely and said that Covid-19 had impacted women and girls which required efforts to empower them as they could accelerate economic growth as well as make improvements on health care. She said Australia had many partnerships with ASEAN, particularly for women’s and girl’s empowerment as part of the ASEAN economic strategy.
Vicky Ford, UK Minister of State for Development, said at the summit that gender equality remains a problem in many countries around the world.
“If women’s standing in labour markets was on equal footing to men’s, it could add another $28 billion to global GDP by 2025. We have seen advances in recent decades, such as more and more girls entering school and more women taking leadership positions, but serious challenges remain,” she said, adding that the challenges had been added to with the pressures of Covid-19, armed conflicts and climate change.
She said that it shouldn’t take another 135 years to end the gender gap in pay between men and women in the workplace, referencing the year 1888 when the secretary of the Women’s Trade Union League, Clementina Black, secured the first equal pay resolution at the Trades Union Congress in the UK.
“As the UK Minister of State for Development, I want to work with you all to solve these challenges and I am so happy that the UK has become an ASEAN partner as of last year,” she said, adding that the UK plans to work with ASEAN on the three E’s: “Education, empowerment and ending violence”.
