Sweden joins ILO efforts on women’s employment in Turkey

The ILO and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) have signed a project cooperation agreement amounting to US$ 3.5 million to support women’s empowerment in Turkey, which is expected to contribute substantially to the goal of advancing gender equality in employment and providing decent employment opportunities for women.

The agreement was signed on 1 March 2013 by Ümit Efendioğlu, Director of the ILO Office for Turkey, and Mikael Elofsson, SIDA’s Head of Division for Western Balkans and Turkey. The project will be jointly implemented by the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR) under the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and the ILO in the provinces of Ankara, Bursa, Konya and İstanbul.

The project, which will run for 40 months, aims to support women’s empowerment in Turkey by providing decent work opportunities through capacity development of relevant institutions, active labour market policy interventions and awareness-raising on gender equality, women’s human rights and rights at work.

The project will contribute to integrating gender-sensitive approaches into active labour market policies and identifying the occupations in need where there are decent work opportunities for women to be employed in the project provinces. The project will also serve as a basis for the preparation of a National Action Plan on Women’s Employment and Gender Equality which will be owned and sustained by İŞKUR in collaboration with the related ministries, public institutions, social partners and civil society.

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