Sofina Mirza-Reid* says the UN has launched a new gender equality initiative to help employers set ambitious corporate targets for women’s leadership.
The United Nations Global Compact Network this month launched Target Gender Equality, a new initiative to mobilise and support organisations in setting and meeting ambitious corporate targets for women’s representation and leadership in business.
Engaging Global Compact participants across the globe, Target Gender Equality will drive business action in support of Sustainable Development Goal 5.5, which calls for women’s full participation and equal opportunities for leadership, including in economic life, by 2030.
The program builds on the UN Global Compact’s work with UN Women to promote the Women’s Empowerment Principles by helping participating organisations set concrete targets and take action to advance women’s leadership, starting with the board and executive management levels, where women continue to be critically underrepresented.
Globally, less than 30 per cent of senior management roles are held by women.
In particular, men continue to dominate strategic management roles, including profit and loss functions, which tend to feed top leadership positions.
Further, while research shows that a critical mass of 30 per cent is necessary to fully reap the benefits of gender diversity on corporate boards, according to research by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), globally, over 13 per cent of boards do not have a single woman represented and the majority have low female representation.
“The economic gender gap is widening and will now take 257 years to close,” said Lise Kingo, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact.
“Business must help reverse this trend and take bold action to advance gender equality.”
“This is the moment to ensure that targets on women’s participation are included as part of balanced scorecards and corporate strategies in all companies.”
According to a recent ILO study, when boardrooms are 30–39 per cent women, organisations are 18.5 per cent more likely to have improved business outcomes.
When boardrooms are gender-balanced, organisations are 20 per cent more likely to have improved business outcomes.
The Target Gender Equality initiative will be rolled out in 20 countries this year in collaboration with Global Compact Local Networks.
Participating organisations will benefit from facilitated performance analysis, capacity-building workshops, peer-to-peer learning and opportunities to engage in multi-stakeholder dialogue.
As a special initiative of the UN Secretary-General, the UN Global Compact works with organisations everywhere to align their operations and strategies with 10 universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
Launched in 2000, the UN Global Compact guides and supports the global business community in advancing UN goals and values through responsible corporate practices.
With more than 10,000 organisations and 3,000 non-business signatories based in over 160 countries, and 68 Local Networks, it is the largest corporate sustainability initiative in the world.
Visit www.unglobalcompact.org/ for further information.
* Sofina Mirza-Reid handles external communications and is a speechwriter for the UN Global Compact.
This article first appeared at www.csrwire.com.
