National Women’s Education Center of Japan

From June 8 through June 19, 2016, staff from the Office of Research and International Affairs participated as gender expert in the wide-area survey team as part of the survey on economic independence for women being conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Central America and the Caribbean region.

On June 10, at a workshop held in the Republic of El Salvador for civil servants in the field of government administration, a report was delivered on efforts to provide assistance to women entrepreneurs in Japan.

During the week after, with the cooperation of the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Women and the Council of Women’s Affairs Ministers for Central America, the survey team conducted interviews with women entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic. On the final day, a workshop was held in Santo Domingo on the topic of economic independence for women. Ahead of the commencement of the workshop, Minister Alejandrina Germán of the Ministry of Women delivered remarks in which she said, “Economic independence for women is essential to eradicating the rampant problem of violence against women in the country.” In the keynote address, NWEC staff gave an overview on gender equality policies in Japan as well as best practices for providing assistance to women wishing to start businesses.