Overview of the 2009 Summit Roundtable
At the 2009 Summit Roundtable, more than 130 women gathered to participate in smaller group discussions of the Plenary and Panel sessions of the Summit which was themed Can Women Turn Adversity into Opportunity? In their groups they looked at critical issues facing society and suggested initiatives and solutions that would support and enable women across all sectors of society to both weather the economic challenges facing the nation, and to help them to participate more fully in key positions and in the work sphere.
The Roundtable Participants were divided into twelve groups of approximately 10 persons each. Facilitators worked with them to discuss the six main topics presented in the morning. The groups then compiled their different recommendations to address several main issues. These were summarised for the Minister, Dato’ Sri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil by Dr Hamidah Merican who served as Moderator for the Roundtable. To avoid repetition, these recommendations are grouped here according to theme.
1 TOUGH TIMES: REBUILDING WITH STRENGTH AND INTEGRITY
The Roundtable Participants supported the Keynote Address by the Deputy Prime Minister which was seen to be a timely call to the nation to embrace equality between men and women. This was seen as a necessary progressive step towards the objective of 1Malaysia which is understood to mean Unity in Diversity, Equality and Justice for all.
Recommendations
1. Participants wholly endorsed the DPM’s call for principled development and urged that the government to strive for an uncompromising commitment to ethical, moral and spiritual values.
2. The objective of sustainability in action should be upheld in the national development and natural resource management policies.
3. Initiatives to build trust and transparency should be supported in tandem with efforts to eradicate corruption and personal opportunism.
4. The government should also engage and connect with the grassroots and create space for open and constructive discussion and social dialogue.
5. To ensure programmes and initiatives are ‘on-target’, the government needs to be more consultative by involving more women and women’s organisations in drawing up, reviewing and implementing policies.
2 BOOST WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN THE WORKFORCE
The rate of retrenchment amongst women is currently very high. This needs to be taken seriously as it will impact on the labour force participation rate of women in Malaysia. The CEDAW concluding comments on women and employment has recommended that government increase the participation of women and also compile data on labour force participation. The Ninth Malaysia Plan also has a strategic thrust on increasing women’s labour force participation.
Recommendations
1. The government needs to monitor this rate of retrenchment and put in place actions to address the CEDAW concluding comments on employment.
2. The government should remove the retirement age of 50 for women as this is being abused to ‘cast off’ capable women that are still willing and able to serve well but are considered to be ‘too expensive’ to employ. Women over 50 are still able to contribute and also need to earn income for their children’s education.
3. Set labour force participation targets for women.
4. Set targets for women in training programmes with particular focus on marginalised women.
5. Develop more self-employment opportunities and entrepreneurial development for those not in the formal employment sector.
6. Support small-scale businesses in the informal sector.
3 INSTITUTIONALISE FLEXIBLITY
Past Women’s Summits have discussed the need for greater flexibility for both men and women in order for them to be effective in the workforce and to manage their family roles. Inflexibility is forcing more women out of employment and weakening national productivity.
Recommendations
1. The government should take the lead by institutionalizing support services for childcare, flexible employment options and part-time employment or job-sharing as was discussed in previous Summits.
2. Incentives should be developed to encourage the provision more enablers such as Worklife Balance policies and childcare services.
3. Previous Summit Recommendations should be studied as more extensive suggestions have been captured there.
4 WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION ON BOARDS AND IN SENIOR MANAGEMENT ROLES
Women, despite being highly educated, are very poorly represented in senior management and leadership in both the private and public sectors. The lack of gender and diversity in positions of importance is considered to weaken the credibility and integrity of institutions and also reduce their competitiveness. More needs to be done to address the situation.
Recommendations
1. The government should take the lead by hiring more local women and expertise for Government-led projects and programmes.
2. The government should also evaluate hiring procedures to ensure that they are equal opportunity and meritocratic.
3. A mandatory policy for women’s representation on Boards of Directors should be made compulsory for companies that seek to list on Bursa Malaysia.
4. Review Nordic and African countries to understand how women have managed to obtain greater representation in government.
5. Build a database of capable and experienced women of integrity that could readily serve as Directors on Boards of Public Listed companies and other organisations.
6. The GLCs should be seen to be taking the lead in getting women on Boards and senior management. The statistics on representation in these companies should show an increase by next year.
5 ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND PROGRAMMES
There is presently a lack of access to centralised information on programmes and activities under the Government’s stimulus package for women-owned enterprises. It is widely perceived that obtaining support is complicated and bureaucratic.
Recommendations
1. Set up a Central Information Centre for women to access programmes, grants, opportunities, activities and advice under the stimulus package.
2. Efforts should be made to simplify and systematise the process.
3. This information should also be disseminated through a range of media - radio and television, online and print media and should be made available in ALL languages.
6 PROGRAMMES TO HELP WOMEN DEVELOP BUSINESS SKILLS
Programmes should be implemented to provide capacity building and training opportunities to enhance the performance and reach of women-owned enterprises.
1. KPWKM should work with relevant agencies to conduct business clinics to assist women with setting up, expanding or revamping their businesses.
2. Develop mobile units to assist grassroot enterprises that are not able to access services in the cities.
3. SMIDEC should be encouraged to offer soft-skills training. This could include assertiveness training and role-play exercises for women, and advice on how to market their services and products more effectively.
4. Mentoring and capacity building programmes should also be developed to support women seeking assistance with building their businesses.
5. Help women access ongoing programmes to reach wider local and international markets.
7 ADDRESS PROBLEM OF INADEQUATE FINANCIAL KNOWLEDGE
Women are often poorly equipped with knowledge on financial planning as they tend to leave these matters to their spouses or fathers. They suffer from messy personal finances and this can lead them to become vulnerable and fall into poverty which leads to stress and poor mental health. Their financial situation also impacts their families as women are the main ones looking after the immediate needs of their children and their parents.
Recommendations
1. Make counselling and training in financial planning and self development more widely available.
2. Include financial planning as part of the education syllabus.
8 EMPOWERING WOMEN TOWARDS GREATER GENDER EQUALITY
The empowerment of girls is dependent on clear messages on gender equality being planted at school level. Girls need to receive consistent messages that they can aim high in both the educational and the work sphere.
1. The national education system, syllabus and teaching training should be reviewed to weed out negative messages and stereotypes.
2. Programmes involving positive female role models for schoolchildren should be developed.
9 REDRESS INAPPROPRIATE PORTRAYALS OF WOMEN IN THE MEDIA
Current portrayals of women in the media encourage negative stereotypes of women.
Recommendations
1. Develop positive media resources for women by working with various media players in ALL languages - among the suggestions were a business radio station for women, online media and other networking tools for women.
2. Support dedicated women’s business channels on TV and radio.
3. Establish a media monitoring group to help challenge exploitative and negative images of women in the mass media as part of an ongoing education process to weed out this phenomenon.
10 MORE INFORMATION TO BENCHMARK WOMEN’S PROGRESS
In order to understand the effectiveness of programmes, it is vital that data and statistics are obtained and reported on.
Recommendations
1. Obtain and publicise relevant data
2. Publicise benchmarks and monitor statistics documenting women’s progress.
11 MEETING THE NEEDS OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
The Disabled and the marginalised are groups with very specific needs. These need to be addressed by a systematic and multi-pronged approach ranging from education and employment-support to ensure that these Malaysians are able to prodcutively take their place in society.
Recommendations
1. Create a multi-disciplinary medical taskforce for early intervention and the development of a planned approach to identify learning disabilities in students so that they may be assisted early.
2. Develop an Awareness Programme to ensure parents seek help for children with disabilities.
3. Fast-track an Action Plan to identify schools that can accept and integrate children with disabilities, and provide more support for Special Education training.
4. There should be more consultation with people living with disabilities and more representation on key committees and boards. They require higher visibility and the opportunity to voice their specific needs.
5. Develop a Watchdog Unit with individuals with social and legal background to develop a Reporting Scorecard for both Government and Corporate to track compliance on gender and disability laws and employment quotas.
6. To ensure that people living with disabilities have access to opportunities to find employment, the Government can assist by creating a database of women seeking employment and their specific skills and experience and matching these with prospective employers.
7. The Department of Welfare should look into becoming more service-oriented and conduct home visits or visit centres. Some of the current bureaucratic processes are inefficient and unnecessarily cruel to people who are not able to move around freely.
12 DISABLED-FRIENDLY BUILDINGS AND SPACES
The Government needs to take the lead in supporting more disabled-friendly buildings, spaces and transport if it is to effectively push the corporate and private sector to do the same.
1. Beginning with the current Department of Welfare, the government should request all agencies and departments to present a strategy to make their buildings more disabled-friendly and to operationalise a programme for action.
2. More should be done to encourage the corporate sector to do the same and to report on progress annually.
RESPONSE FROM DATO’ SRI SHAHRIZAT ABDUL JALIL
Dato’ Sri Shahrizat, who was present to listen to the recommendations, thanked the 130 women that had been involved in the 2009 Summit Roundtable. Acknowledging that the Women’s Summit was now in its seventh year, she shared that the Summit was first started in order to reach out to working women in the corporate sector, in business, as well as the public and non-government sectors.
She remarked that over the years, the Summit has amassed an impressive alumnus of women that bring with them in-depth perspectives and specialised experience and expertise. Having been given the opportunity to lead the Ministry once again, she believed that she needed to engage these women and organisations to speed up the process of developing policy and delivering effective programmes to the nation.
The Ministry’s role is especially challenging and wide-ranging - it looks after Malaysians “from the womb to the tomb” and this includes a wide range of groups and social issues, even natural disasters. She expressed her belief that the Women of the Summit represented a tremendous resource to the nation and could help her and her officers reach out to the various groups with which she is tasked with helping - senior citizens and the aging population, the disabled community, single-mothers, and women entrepreneurs were just some examples.
Following this year’s Summit, an immediate task would be to work with the Women’s Summit Secretariat to gather all the recommendations from previous year’s Focus Groups and Summit Roundtables and draw up an action plan to address them.
It would also be important to hold smaller follow up meetings for key issues in the coming months and she welcomed the continued participation of the Roundtable participants. She commented that it was vital to work across racial lines and perceived government-private sector divides if efforts are to positively impact our diverse society.
Ultimately, the objective in the next 12 months would be to implement policy developments by the next Summit or at least explain what had been done in order to advance these issues. In closing , she looked forward to reporting positive gains for women in Malaysia at the next Summit.
