Rwanda commits to increase economic participation of women

Rwanda makes the following commitments to increase the economic participation of women: Achieve gender parity in financial inclusion by 2030. To close the existing gap, the country pledges to work to increase access to financial services for women as well as improve use of available financial products. Rwanda also commits to achieve gender parity in waged non-farm employment. Currently, women account for just over a quarter of all off-farm jobs, and their transition from agriculture is slower than that of men. As part of this effort, Rwanda will triple the number of girls enrolled in Technical and Vocational Training by the year 2020. Finally, Rwanda commits to bridge the digital divide between men and women, and to attain parity in ICT usage by the year 2020. Currently, only 35 per cent of women own mobile phones compared to 49 per cent of men. Women are also under-represented as ICT graduates in higher education. [Speech]