Interview with Michele Ribotta, Head of the UN Gender Group and UN Women Representative in Albania

On 24 February 2023, the Government of Albania and UN Women hosted a sub-regional consultation for the Western Balkans and Türkiye, in preparation for the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67). The consultation provided an opportunity to discuss the gender gap in digital access, women's underrepresentation in certain professions, women’s entrepreneurship, decision-making in the digital transformation, as well as online discrimination and violence in the region.

FED Invest is amongst the latest private companies in Albania signing the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). FED Invest, a financial services company, joined the group of private sector partners that are now formally promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community.

More than ninety women and girls from four regions of Albania participated in a fair event organized by UN Women and supported by the Albanian Network for Rural Development. They discussed the challenges faced by women in the agri-food sector in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and Municipality of Elbasan officials.

Since September 2021, UN Women has been working closely with UNHCR and CARITAS in Albania to ensure that migrant and asylum-seeking women and girls, in particular those at high risk of being subjected to violence, are properly identified and welcomed in the country.

Women’s organizations across Eastern Europe and Central Asia urged governments and development partners to recognize the unique and vital needs of women and girls in pandemic response and recovery efforts. Activists warned the international community that the world risks a roll back in women’s rights if necessary efforts are not urgently undertaken.

Women are playing a key role—often disproportionate to men—in responding to the disease, as frontline healthcare workers, as well as care givers at home. Experience of other disease outbreaks shows that they have the highest risk to be infected. Almost 12 per cent of Albania’s reported cases of coronavirus have been health workers, but no fatalities have been reported yet.

A week since The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, the social impact of the Corona Virus is hitting women hard, around the world. Globally, women make up 70 per cent of workers in the health and social sector, and they do three times as much unpaid care work at home as men. As first responders, frontline health workers, primary care givers at home and community mobilizers, women are at increased risk of exposure to the virus. They are also playing a disproportionate role in responding to the disease.