UN Women Convenes Global Business and Philanthropic Leaders to Help Accelerate SDG Action Through Women’s Empowerment

The year 2030—and with it the deadline for achieving global gender equality—will be here before we know it, and at our current rate of progress, the goal seems out of reach. But since the Sustainable Development Goals were established in 2015, and with them Goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, UN Women has been working tirelessly to achieve gender equality worldwide. The organization brought philanthropists and business leaders together at the SDG 5 Forum to bring together partners from diverse areas to organize and work together toward the common goal of gender equality. Forum participants included Al Waleed Philanthropies, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Chanel Foundation, Ford Foundation, Procter & Gamble, Revlon, Unilever, WPP and Read on for more details; including how much work we still have to do and the public and private sector efforts to envision—and achieve—true global gender equality.

UN WOMEN—One thousand days into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and counting down to 2030, which is the deadline for achieving global gender equality under SDG 5, UN Women convened business and philanthropic leaders on the margins of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 73) to step up commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Global business and philanthropic leaders pledged more than USD 70 million in 2018 (USD 13 million of which was pledged at the UNGA 73 SDG 5 Forum today) to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through UN Women.

No single country has ever achieved gender equality, and according to industry estimates this failure will cost USD 28 trillion[1] by 2025. Forum participants focused on how public and private sectors can bolster efforts to achieve global gender equality by 2030.

“Every day there is more evidence of what the world is missing when it falls short of equality between women and men. Our globally agreed roadmap of the 2030 Agenda puts the drive for that equality right at the centre of all the goals to be achieved,” said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. “Governments, civil society and the business world all contributed to that vision and must act together in shaping the solution. These combined forces are critical if we are to make unstoppable progress by 2020 and meet the 2030 target.”

UN Women was established in 2010 to help the world end gender inequality and the 17 SDGs were adopted by global leaders in 2015, with SDG 5 focusing on achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in every country of the world. The World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 217 years to achieve gender equality at the current rate of progress.

The SDG 5 Forum builds on UN Women’s work across sectors, including this month’s launch of the Global Innovation Coalition for Change’s (GICC) Gender Innovation Principles, a global set of standards adopted by an alliance of 27 partners from private sector, non-profit organizations and academic institutions that takes a gender-responsive approach to innovation and technology. The financial commitments at the SDG 5 Forum and from UN Women’s strategic partnerships will support efforts toward innovation, eliminating violence against women and girls, generating gender equality data and evidence, fast tracking women’s economic empowerment, ensuring education, providing access to health services and protection of women’s livelihoods in crisis settings, as well as building climate resilience in sustainable agricultural food chains that benefit women farmers.

We're at the #UNGA #SDG5 Forum with a special group of private sector and philanthropic leaders. Follow along as we show the world that #TimeIsNow for gender equality! pic.twitter.com/jnSdmIy7bC

— UN Women (@UN_Women) September 27, 2018

Global business and philanthropy leaders that pledged support at today’s event through UN Women to countries around the world included: Al Waleed Philanthropies, Chanel Foundation, Revlon, WPP and Zonta International Foundation. UN Women continues to benefit from financial support from foundations and global organizations such as Alibaba Group, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, International Olympic Committee, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, as well as public sector funding that enables private sector engagement from the European Union and the NAMA Women Advancement Establishment.

UN Women has established several mechanisms to mobilize private sector and foundations in the world’s quest to achieve SDG 5 by 2030 including the 1,800 companies that signed onto the  Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), the HeForShe impact movement, Common Ground, the GICC, and the  Unstereotype Alliance participants.

As the world comes together for #UNGA we ask business and philanthropic leaders to stand with us on 27 September to act for gender equality. The #TimeIsNow. Will you join us? pic.twitter.com/qamcZtIM07

— UN Women (@UN_Women) September 27, 2018

To date, UN Women has continued to connect women, governments, and communities to foster change across sectors, from using technology to increase the income of women in agriculture to help them secure decent jobs, to supporting the reform discriminatory laws worldwide. UN Women has trained more than 7,000 women leaders in politics and governance last year alone, and over 1.5 billion women and girls in 52 countries are better protected from violence through stronger legal frameworks.

Follow the hashtag #TimeIsNow and @UN_Women on Twitter for updates.

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Happy Mother’s Day: Celebrating the Power and Inspiration of Mothers Everywhere

This Mother's Day, we've rounded up some news, commentary, and inspiration for you; all centering on mothers, motherhood, and the women who nurture, lead, protect, advocate for, and raise future generations.

Whether you're a mother yourself, are thanking and spending time with your own mother or the guiding women in your life, plan to honor mothers and great women who have supported and inspired you, or have a complicated relationship with motherhood and how (or if) it fits into your vision; we want to invite every woman to honor the strength, resilience, intelligence, and compassion that she and all the women around us bring to so many lives each day. Click through to enjoy the stories.

What Daughters Learn When Mom Is the Boss of the Family Business: A survey by global organization EY has found that women at the helm in family-owned companies helps other women—family members and unrelated women—to see themselves in leadership roles. Entrepreneur Magazine examines the effect, including the benefits of exemplifying leadership qualities, the rising tide of women leading companies or being considered for the top spot, the power of personal examples, and more.

The 50 Most Powerful Moms of 2018: Working Mother Magazine highlights fifty inspiring, powerful women who are leading the way while leading their families. The list amplifies some of the most important voices of the moment, honoring "women in power who raised their voices, gathered their communities, leveraged their status and demanded respect, safety, and equity for women in the workplace."

Employers Ranked on Maternity Benefits: A key to helping women succeed is providing for mothers and helping them continue to thrive in the workplace—paving the way for more secure futures for women while allowing companies to continue to benefit from their work, leadership, and insight; as well as helping them attract the best candidates. An annual ranking shows which companies do the best job prioritizing maternity benefits and family-friendly policies such as realistic maternity leave, flexible work schedules, and affordable child care—and areas that appear to be improving for working moms.

Motherhood Means Love: Mother’s Day Quotes From Around the World: The Global Fund for Women has collected a selection of quotes about mothers, motherhood, protecting one another, safety, the power of our voices and more from mothers across diverse backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. Share in the inspiration and unifying power of womanhood and motherhood; and celebrate mothers, women, and human rights all year long.

Image: Global Fund for Women

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At Davos, Canada’s Trudeau speaks up on women’s rights

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke at Davos Tuesday, where he resolved to prioritize gender inequality and women's rights and discussed the importance of using privilege, wealth, and power to help others. Click through to read more about his address, and the issues being discussed at the World Economic Forum.

By Yara Bayoumy, Noah Barkin

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a passionate defense of gender and social equality in Davos on Tuesday, days before U.S. President Donald Trump was due to take the stage at a forum traditionally seen as an enclave of the global elite.

Trudeau, whose country has the presidency of the Group of Seven industrialized nations this year, said gender equality would be a priority in “everything the G7 does this year”.

Trudeau, who appointed a cabinet with an equal number of women and men on taking power in 2015, also referenced social media campaigns against sexual harassment and misconduct and women’s marches in several U.S. cities last weekend in which speakers blasted Trump for policies they said had hurt women.

“MeToo, TimesUp, the Women’s March, these movements tell us that we need to have a critical discussion on women’s rights, equality and power dynamics of gender,” said Trudeau.

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Once more, Iceland has shown it is the best place in the world to be female

Following Iceland's trailblazing equal-pay law, bestselling author and political journalist Sif Sigmarsdóttir reflects on the gender pay gap, as well as gender equality in general, in Iceland and around the world. She explores how Iceland is one of the best places to be a woman—in personal as well as professional life—and how statements like the women’s strike of 1975 made a nation recognize and respect the value of women; paving the way for Iceland's first woman president (and one of the world's first democratically elected women leaders), Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

The author discusses how growing up seeing a woman leader—and becoming used to it—affected a generation of Icelandic women. However, she also considers how inequality has persisted in Iceland, from leadership hurdles to the gender pay gap, which for years has stagnated at about 16 percent.

Click through to read more about how long women will have to wait for the gender pay gap to fully close, the importance of both symbolic and far-reaching concrete policy changes like the equal-pay law, and how to keep moving the needle on gender equality.

By Sif Sigmarsdóttir

On 24 October 1975, the women of Iceland refused to show up for work. They refused to cook, clean or look after their children. Basically, they went on strike. And that day, the shops in Iceland ran out of the only convenience food available at the time: sausages.

Call it symbolism, but by going on strike the women of Iceland were calling for men to respect their work and demanding equal pay.

This week Iceland became the first country in the world to make companies prove they are not paying women less than men for the same work. Employers are rushing to comply with the new rules to avoid fines. Companies and government agencies with more than 25 staff must obtain government certification of their equal pay policies.

Iceland has long been deemed the best place in the world to be a woman. For the past nine years, the country has topped the World Economic Forum’s gender equality index; the UK comes in at 15th.

In Iceland men get at least three months’ paternity leave, and 90% of them take it. This gives them time to become comfortable with child-rearing, encouraging them to share the workload with their partners. Women in Iceland are highly educated, a high percentage hold managerial positions and they don’t give up their careers to have children: they do both – like the country’s new prime minister. At the end of 2017 Iceland got its second female prime minister, a 41-year-old with three young sons.

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Corporate Firms Joining Forces, Pledging To Work Toward Gender Equality In Their Companies By 2030 - GirlTalkHQ

It's great to see so many high-profile people and companies championing feminism, but women still face an uphill battle when it comes to seeing representation on boards and in the C-suite. Check out this article from Girl Talk HQ about Paradigm for Parity; a movement, tool kit, action plan and pledge encouraging businesses to address the gender gap in business leadership. Click through to read the whole article, including Paradigm for Parity's five action steps to help identify and combat bias in business, and ensure women have equal opportunity and an equal share of business leadership by 2030. girltalkhq.com - As much as we’d love to believe Beyoncé when she sings “Who run the world? Girls!” the truth is the exact opposite, especially when it comes to the corporate sector. Most companies would have no problem stating they are all for promoting gender equality, but if you looked at the people who make up their staff, you may see a different story.

The collective “Lean In” moment is still yet to happen, but the awareness of the gender gap is at the very least a start. So how do you move the needle to ensure greater representation of women in positions of leadership? One organization has come up with a list of 5 specific action steps that companies can take in order to put their money where their mouth it.

Paradigm for Parity is made up of a coalition of business leaders dedicated to addressing the corporate leadership gender gap. The coalition is made up of CEOs, senior executives, founders, board members, and business academics who have one common goal, to ensure women have equal status, power and opportunity by the year 2030. They want to see women holding at least 30% of top leadership roles in the corporate sector.

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Saudi Arabia celebrates first ever Women’s Day to fight for gender equality

indianexpress.com - Sadly, it is the only country in the world that it prohibits women from driving. (Source: AP) Sadly, it is the only country in the world that it prohibits women from driving. (Source: AP) International Women’s Day is widely celebrated across the globe where people pledge their support for gender equality and celebrate the achievements of women and has become a regular event in the social calendar. Yet, many countries beyond this ambit and Saudi Arabia is one such nation where many basic rights are denied to its women. But in a great move, the orthodox country celebrated its first ever Women’s Day. The just concluded affair in Riyadh saw members of the royal family participating as well in a bid to fight for women’s rights.

ALSO SEE | WATCH: This viral song, ‘God, rid us of men!’ from Saudi Arabia is the new feminist anthem

“The three-day gathering, which was held from February 1 to 4 at the King Fahd Cultural Centre, featured talks from advocates of a woman’s right to drive, as well as other legal rights for women, including freedom of guardianship,” the Emirates Women said in a report.

Girls Take a Place at the Table to Discuss U.N.’s 2030 Agenda

This article originally appeared Oct. 12 on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Christine Chung

The U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals promise gender equality, but a panel marking the International Day of the Girl agreed that achieving the goals requires monitoring and active participation by girls to make sure governments deliver.

In Geneva, there was no missing the fact that yesterday was International Day of the Girl. Various U.N. offices usually reserved for dignitaries, like those of the director-general and the UNICEF Geneva liaison, were taken over by girls, while a flash mob of young women and their supporters gathered at the Place des Nations in front of the square’s iconic statue of a giant three-legged chair.

To mark the day, Plan International organized a panel featuring young activists from Zambia and Germany, U.N. officials, and Colombia’s ambassador, to discuss how girls fit into the U.N.’s 2030 agenda.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in September 2015, comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets for people, planet and prosperity. According to Alfonso Barragues, director of the U.N. Population Fund in Geneva, the main difference between the SDGs and the Millennium Development Goals, which were set out in 2000 with a 2015 deadline, is “a paradigm change.”

“The MDGs were an aid contract between developed and developing countries,” Barragues told the panel. “The SDGs are a social contract, so it’s an agenda for girls and their generation.” Panel members agreed that a key tool in carrying out that agenda is data.

The fifth SDG specifically aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Speaking on the panel, Ngandu, a young woman from Zambia, laid out the prejudices she faces every day. “To be a girl in Zambia is to be a second-class citizen,” she said. “People believe that boys are more knowledgeable than girls.”

“Girls face human rights challenges that are enormous, massive, but their situation is essentially invisible,” Barragues told Women & Girls Hub. “This is an invisibility that takes place in front of our eyes.”

As part of the panel, Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, CEO of Plan International, said that “the invisible girl is the first barrier to be broken.” Plan International’s new report, “Counting the Invisible,” shows how data not only reflects gender differences and inequalities, but also provides girls and those advocating for their rights a useful tool to demand accountability. “The SDGs are not a framework but a promise,” said Albrectsen. “Promises need to be monitored. Everyone needs to hold their governments to account.”

Barragues referred to data as a fundamental tool, saying, “Emphasis on data would kill several birds with one stone: for planning, evidence-based advocacy and ultimately strengthening the social movements of girls.”

After an audience member commented on the difficulties in addressing the needs of sex-trafficking victims, the panel moderator, U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore, noted the challenge of giving attention to both data and the voices of those whose experiences it aims to quantify.

“We can’t measure everything. At the end of the day, we have to address the root causes, not just the symptoms, which are easier to measure,” said Barragues. “Social norms and attitudes that come from patriarchal views that women are inferior, these create the power imbalances that put girls at a disadvantage.”

Gender bias is ingrained in the measurement process, resulting not only in the lack of data but even in “bad” data, write contributors Mayra Buvinic and Ruth Levine in “Counting the Invisible.” One consequence is that data can misrepresent reality so that women appear more dependent and less productive than they actually are, which in turn influences policy decisions.

In addition to the importance of gathering better data, the panel also discussed investing in quality education and facilitating active participation by girls in policy discussions as keys to empowerment. Speakers both on the panel and in the audience noted that a solution to gender inequity can only be achieved with the participation of boys and men.

“We should empower women, but we can’t leave men behind,” said Luca, a young woman from Germany on the panel. “We rise, and we take them with us.”

Barragues said there are promising efforts to involve men in the process of empowering women and girls. He points to the International Geneva Gender Champions, an initiative launched by the U.N. Office at Geneva and the United States Mission to the U.N.

“These are heads of agencies and organizations and ambassadors committing to advancing gender equality in the work of the international community in Geneva,” he said. “For example, the initiative promotes panel parity at those events organized by the U.N. There are over 150 champions already mobilized, including the high commissioner for human rights. In fact, the majority are men, which is helpful to promote men’s engagement on gender equality, but is also telling in terms of who holds rank. Ultimately, we are striving to see parity in all areas.”

Shining a Light on Invisible Girls and Women: Why Gender Data Matters

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list.

By Zahra Sethna

On International Day of the Girl, girls are demonstrating their ability to change the world. Yet more needs to be done to make all girls visible, including gathering meaningful data about their lives, writes Plan International’s Zahra Sethna.

It’s hard to ignore a girl like Masline. An 18-year-old student at a school just outside of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, she is smart, confident and determined. Talking about her hobbies makes her smile. She loves to write poetry and is especially inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello.

Masline is a great example of what happens when girls are empowered to reach their potential. She sailed through her secondary school exams with top marks, and once she finishes her current course of study she would like to become a teacher and act as a role model for other girls.

The sad truth, however, is that around the world there are millions of girls who don’t have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams like Masline.

In a recent qualitative research study of vulnerable girls in Zimbabwe, 81 percent of the 121 girls Plan International spoke to said that at one point or another they had to drop out of school, either temporarily or permanently. Most of the time this was because they couldn’t afford tuition and school fees. Once out of school, they said it was hard to go back and doubly hard to fight off the pressure they faced to get married and lessen the financial strain on their families.

When girls drop out of school and get married as children, they often become invisible to governments and policymakers because their realities are not being captured in official data and statistics. They become much easier to overlook and more vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and violence.

The plight of invisible girls is the focus of our new report, “Counting the Invisible,” which makes the case that improved data on the barriers facing girls and women is essential to achieve true equality.

How Data Can Help

Just having more data will not make all the difference to these girls. Data alone can’t change the world, but when data is collected and analyzed in the right way, they certainly can help make change possible. The insights it reveals can help inform policy and program choices. It can identify needs and challenges and help lead us to the groups of people who face the biggest barriers to realizing their rights, such as rural communities, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. It can provide the evidence advocates need to press for change. And it can show us what works and what does not, so we can be sure to invest in the solutions that really transform lives.

Here’s an example: Let’s say a municipality wants to address the barriers girls face in getting to school. The municipality puts public transportation options in place so girls don’t have to walk long distances, and then it measures how many girls have access to that public transportation. Still, the problem persists – many girls still walk long distances or fail to attend school.

What this municipality failed to do was talk to the girls themselves to fully understand the challenges they face. If they had done some qualitative research, they might have learned that many girls are afraid for their safety in public. In Nicaragua, 65 percent of the girls we spoke to said they do not feel safe on public transportation and 59 percent do not feel safe walking on their own in public places. If girls don’t feel safe riding the bus or walking by themselves in public, having access to public transportation has little meaning in their lives.

When data reveals the scope and scale of an issue, it becomes harder for policymakers to avoid taking action.

That much-needed context is one part of the problem. Sparse data is another. For example, a lack of data on how much time women spend on unpaid household work has led to a misguided impression that women in developing countries have free time to spend on training programs or other well-intentioned community development interventions. When built on an inaccurate assumption of how much time women can afford to spend participating, these interventions often see high dropout rates and low returns on investment.

When data reveals the scope and scale of an issue, it becomes harder for policymakers to avoid taking action. Advocacy efforts in Kiribati, a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean, led the government to conduct its first study on violence against women and children in 2008. Until then, gender-based violence was considered an issue to be dealt with in private. There were no policies or laws in place and little clarity as to how police were expected to respond.

When the results of the study were released in 2010, the nation was shocked to learn that nearly 70 percent of women who had ever been partnered said they had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner. On the back of these findings, some significant legal and social changes were made. This included a new national law, training for police and healthcare providers, changes to school curricula to teach children about respectful relationships and gender equality, services for survivors of violence, and special police units trained to deal with domestic violence. Data can, as this example shows, be a powerful force for change.

That’s why Plan International has joined with a group of like-minded partners to develop an independent measure to track progress for girls and women from now until 2030. This new initiative will produce an assessment that aims to become the leading source of information for advocates, activists, governments, civil society partners and others working to achieve gender equality.

By measuring and monitoring progress and gaps for girls and women, partners will hold governments and other stakeholders accountable for delivering on the commitments they have made. Partners will also complement existing data with original qualitative and perceptions data that more fully reflects girls’ and women’s realities and highlights their right to influence decisions affecting their lives.

The partnership has a simple vision: a world in which every girl and woman counts and is counted. A world in which every girl can, like Masline, learn, lead their own lives, make decisions about their future and, ultimately, thrive.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Women & Girls Hub.

Diversity is good for business

bdlive.co.za - GALLUP, Harvard, and McKinsey are among organisations that have compiled studies that show the advantages of a gender-diverse executive and workforce.

Increasingly, corporations and politicians are realising the benefits of increased diversity. Diversity makes the business and political world go round. It simply "makes bottom-line business sense", writes Sangeeta Bharadwaj Badal, primary researcher for Gallup’s Entrepreneurship and Job Creation Initiative, commenting on a recent Gallup study, which found that hiring a demographically diverse workforce can improve a company’s financial performance.

Men and women have different viewpoints, ideas, and market insights, which enables better problem-solving, ultimately leading to superior performance.

Despite the overwhelming evidence in its favour, however, gender equality is taking one step forward and two steps back.

A study by tax and assurance company Grant Thornton unearthed distressing results: little progress is being made globally to highlight gender advancement in business leadership. And in SA, only 23% of senior management positions are occupied by women, while just less than 40% of companies have no women at all in leadership positions.

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Gender Still Matters

Madeleine May Kunin; former governor of Vermont and author of “The New Feminist Agenda, Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work and Family;” discusses why gender is still a crucial issue—we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

huffingtonpost.com - Gender bias continues to hover over both male and female voters as they assess a woman's credentials for the presidency. Bias is so subtle that even feminists may not find it in themselves. Today, some women pride themselves in believing that we live in a post feminist society, where there is no longer a need to support women, just as some claim that we live in a post racist society. We may be seeing a new phase of liberation where people can proclaim that they do not have to loyal to either gender or race.

Wait a minute. Yes, progress in both racial and gender justice has been enormous. Once upon a time, when I served in the Vermont legislature, married women couldn't have their own names in the telephone book or obtain a mortgage in their own name. Times have changed, but one look at any group photo of the global leaders tells us who rules the world. If it were not for the suits and German Chancellor Angela Merkel's skirt, then they could pass for a men's soccer team.

The number of women in the United States Congress is at a record high at 19.4 percent. We still are obliged to include decimal points to boost the number. We cannot stop promoting (qualified) women in leadership until the number reaches 50 percent, not just because of gender, but because political leadership will look more like American voters. Studies have shown that corporations which have a significant number of women and people of color on their boards did better than all white male boards during the 2008 recession. Diversity in the workplace mirrors diversity in political leadership; it is guaranteed to produce different outcomes in some areas.

Read more here.