The XII Inter-American Conference of Ministers of Labor (IACML)

Declaration and Plan of Action of Ottawa provided a framework of proposals for incorporating a gender perspective into labour policies. The following is related to education and training:

Eliminating discrimination in social welfare benefits; women's occupational health and safety; unequal career opportunities and pay:

• Redesign and strengthen professional education and training programs to provide better work opportunities for women
• Design and implement professional education and training programs for self-employed women workers
• Design and implement training programs to promote women to decision-making positions.

Follow-up to the XII Inter-American Conference of Ministers of Labor (IACML), 11-12 December, 2001, Washington D.C., United States,

The following actions, related to education and training were recommended:

Institutionalisation of the gender perspective:

• Explicitly integrate the gender perspective within the mandates of the ministries of labour, ensuring that it is reflected in the objectives, design, implementation, and monitoring of policies, plans, and programs, as well as in the criteria for recruiting and training staff through the establishment or strengthening of the appropriate mechanisms, with due regard for the budget resources needed for execution.

Training:

• Promote training for male and female labour ministry professionals in the use of gender-based analysis that incorporates a system of indicators to monitor and assess the impact of labour policies on working women.
• Promote training and technical advisory services on labour rights from a gender perspective for staff in oversight agencies, workers and union and business negotiators.
• Foster in the training of judges - in accordance with the respective national systems - the inclusion of programs that ensure effective legal protection for female workers' rights.
• Train women in nontraditional occupations, to expand and diversify the opportunities available to the female workforce, particularly in new technologies, to facilitate their entry into cutting-edge growth sectors of the economy.
• Promote training programs for self-employed workers and micro-entrepreneurs, with emphasis on such areas as labour rights, project design, management and administration, building entrepreneurial capacity, and leadership.
• Promote training programs to help working women and female employers rise to decision-making positions through the development of skills in management, leadership, direction, and supervision.
• Promote programs to strengthen the technical capacity of social actors to integrate gender issues into the agendas, collective bargaining processes and bipartite and tripartite social dialogue.