According to statistics in the ‘Women and men in Uzbekistan, 2000-2007’ bulletin, as published in 2010 in Tashkent, 46.8 per cent of young Uzbek women study to obtain health and education degrees, while less than 30 per cent study to work in the production sectors of the economy. Despite this imbalance, women still work in Uzbekistan’s industry sector. According to the 2010 bulletin, 42% of the sector’s labor force are women, who hold 12% of all managerial roles.

A number of such women in managerial roles have been invited to participate in today’s discussion. Such participants include the Head of the Department of Industrial and Environmental Security of the JSC ‘Uzlitineftegaz’ Ms. Lyudmila Khegay, the chief project engineer of the division of the oil and gas well construction design of ‘Uzlitineftegaz’ Ms. Victoriya Avanesova, and an environmentalist Ms. Elena Bykova from the Uzbek Academy of Science.

Ms. Khegay has had 36 years of work experience in the oil and gas industry, having carried out some of the most important industry projects of the republic. Ms. Bykova is the leading expert on the Saiga antelopes of Uzbekistan, a species whose world population has decreased by more than 95 per cent. For her efforts to conservation the species in its wild habitat, Ms. Bykova has been awarded.

The UNDP-hosted discussion ‘The oil and gas industry and the environment: a gender perspective’ has attracted the interest of many students of Uzbekistan’s higher education institutions, mostly those of oil and gas industry universities. Students from other universities in Tashkent city have also attended the event, while some students have travelled from as far away as the Karshi Institute of Oil and Gas. The attending professional have shared their views during the meeting, and offered their advice to the attending students.

The meeting is a joint initiative of the UNDP-GEF and the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan project ‘Mainstreaming Biodiversity into Uzbekistan’s Oil-and-Gas Sector Policies and Operations’, undertaken with the support of the Environment and Energy Unit, the Good Governance Unit, and the UN Information Centre.