The theme for this year´s International Women’s Day is “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women”. This message echoes the need to eliminate violence against women around the world, and provides momentum to initiatives aimed at ending violence in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Inter American Development Bank.President of the bank, Luis Alberto Marino, said that in the region, the last decade has been witness to important advances in gender equality. Young women are staying in school longer than young men, and women now represent more than half of university students.Women’s participation in politics and in labour markets reach historical highs; their increased incomes are responsible for a 30 percent reduction in poverty rates,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, he addedThese positive trends, however, are in contrast with high rates of gender-based violence that still affects the countries of the region.“Violence against women has serious consequences beyond the gruesome physical and psychological outcomes for its victims. It also affects families, communities, and economies as a whole. Victims of violence have lower productivity and earnings,Cheap Jerseys Outlet, and the amount of public money spent on prevention, detection and services is significant.The IDB was the first multilateral development bank to tackle the issue of violence against women in the region. Currently, the Bank is supporting two key parts of the region´s response to violence against women.First, it supports integrated, multi-sector interventions that combine quality services for survivors with activities to empower women economically and inform them about their rights. To do this, it is financing the creation of “one-stop shops” that lower the transaction costs that women face to make use of services.In addition,Cheap NFL Jerseys, these one-stop shops such as Ciudad Mujer in El Salvador empower women to achieve economic independence that gives them a realistic opportunity of putting an end to violence in their lives. Second,Wholesale Stitched Jerseys, the IDB supports community-based prevention programs to change underlying social norms and behaviours in order to reduce the prevalence of violence against women.Beyond these investments in the area of violence,Cheap NHL Jerseys, the IDB has a policy of promoting gender equality and avoiding gender-based risks in all of its operations. During 2011 and 2012, the Bank invested over US$56 million to promote gender equality,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, incorporated gender equality into more than 50 loan operations, and trained over 2,000 IDB staff and members of executing agencies working in specific sectors, including rural water,Cheap Jerseys Store, public transport, export promotion and access-to-finance for women-owned businesses.Our mandate to mainstream gender equality in all IDB operations, as well as the specific programs aimed at tackling violence against women, signal our ongoing support to the region´s efforts to make violence against women a thing of the past.
