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	Female workforce participation in Latin American and Caribbean curtailed by Marcela Suazo United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)   August 2007   Although the rate of female participation in the workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean is at an all-time high, women are still being prevented from reaching their economic potential by their child-rearing and caretaking responsibilities, as well as their low status in some countries, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).   This was the main issue discussed as part of a UNFPA-organized event in Quito, Ecuador, called “Toward a New Social and Gender Pact: Shared Responsibility for Productive and Reproductive Work in Latin America and the Caribbean.”   Nearly 60 per cent of the reasons given by women in the region for either not entering or leaving the job market are related to their roles as mothers and caregivers, according to a press release issued by UNFPA.   Marcela Suazo, UNFPA’s Director for the Division for Latin America and the Caribbean, said women’s salaries trail those of men by 20 to 30 per cent, despite the swelling numbers of employed women (about 33 million women entered the job market between 1990 and 2004).   The countries which are among the region’s poorest, have the highest birth rates, the largest informal economies and the weakest social policies – including Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Paraguay – are also the States with the highest female participation in the workforce.   In such countries, women form a disproportionately large portion of the informal sector, in which jobs are lower-paid and offer no benefits, such as health insurance and pension plans.   UNFPA said that statistically, there is a correlation between poverty and high birth rates, which curb women’s prospects to earn a better livelihood.   Ms. Suazo appealed for greater joint responsibility between men and women for caregiving, cautioning that population ageing in the region may result in an even greater need for caregivers.
	UN website fosters sharing of successful sustainable development projects by UNEP Deputy Executive Director Amina Mohamed   The United Nations has launched an online database to strengthen partnerships between sustainable development projects in developing countries and enable communities to better manage their natural resources and local environment.   The first online portal of its kind, the South-South Cooperation Exchange Mechanism will feature a host of initiatives – such as a biomass project at a Kenyan sugar factory and sustainable mining in Sierra Leone – and provide a forum where various actors working on environmental issues in developing countries can submit content, as well as share their expertise and experiences with peers.   “This new initiative is the latest development in UNEP’s ongoing efforts to support South-South cooperation and capacity-building,” the Deputy Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Amina Mohamed, said at the launch of the mechanism at UN Headquarters in New York.   “Central among these is UNEP’s Green Economy initiative, which has assisted and encouraged developing countries to embed sustainability within their national economies – from organic agriculture in Cuba to solar energy in Barbados,” she added. “These are projects which have the potential to be scaled-up and replicated elsewhere in the global South.”   South-South cooperation refers to the exchange of technology, skills, resources and information between governments, organizations and individuals in the developing world.   Currently, around 30 case studies from Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean can already be consulted on the website, available at: www.unep.org/south-south-cooperation. Visit the related web page
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