News Update/ Press Release
Global Compact Network India Hosted 4th Gender Equality Summit
Standing committed towards Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, United Nations Global Compact Network India (UN-GCNI) hosted the 4th edition of Gender Equality Summit (GES), virtually, on March 9-10, 2021. The Theme of this Gender Equality Summit is ‘Covid and New Gender Equations: Adversity to Opportunity’ aligned with the theme of International Women Day-2021 ‘Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID 19 world’.
The Summit was graced by Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Union Cabinet Minister of Ministry of Women & Child Development, and Ministry of Textiles, GoI and followed by Mr. Ram Mohan Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development, GoI, Mr. Shashi Shanker, CMD ONGC groups of companies and President, GCNI, Ms. Olajobi Makinwa, Chief, Intergovernmental Relations & Africa, UN Global Compact (New York) and Ms. Susan Ferguson, Country Representative , UN Women, India.
The summit witnessed over 800 delegates from across the sectors and more 15 CEOs from national and gobal businesses attending UN-GCNI’s 4th Gender Eqaulity Summit and sharing their thoughts and insights on Gender Equality and women empowerment. Key discussions at the summit included COVID & new gender equations: Respond, Recover & Thrive, Driving forces of change: Striving for an equal future from a gender lens, Reconfiguring gender solutions: Economic and Social Empowerment, and Reimagining digital solutions to meet gendered needs. It also focused on how women empowerment could be stimulated in digital jobs, role of young women entrepreneurs in addressing social, economic and cultural barriers preventing exploration of nonconventional roles and responsibilities in India.
“Achieving Gender Equality focusses on Ending all discrimination against women which is not only a basic human right, it’s crucial for sustainable future; it’s proven that empowering women helps economic growth and development, therefore bringing together different sectors and stakeholders to contribute to empowering women and encouraging women’s leadership is essential for nation’s building”—Smriti Zubin Irani.
“SDG 5 (Gender Equality) has a huge multiplier effect on the achievement of other SDGs -If we want an ideal nation , we must respect the women and ensure gender equality”- Ram Mohan Mishra.
“Empowering women is the basic principle of Gender Equality; and corporate sector can play a crucial role in strengthening women leadership. We must increasingly debate about what specifics we can do to break down the gender barriers by respecting and supporting women’s representation and leadership across the sectors and businesses at all levels”-Shashi Shankar.
“As we build back together, we now have an opportunity to address some of the long-standing inequalities. Women must be co-architects of the recovery in this collective action.” – Susan Ferguson.
“We must recognize the value of women leadership in accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals, specially SDG 5.” – Olajobi Makinwa
Providing a crucial platform for mainstreaming gender concerns and women empowerment is essential to ensure Gender Equality” – Vaishali Sinha
“Corporates should move towards a more supportive, flexible and inclusive workplace for women”-Samir Modi
“Adopting Target Gender Equality will facilitate and accelerate empowerment of different genders and their participation in the corporate space”- Shabnam Siddiqui.
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