Gender Equality Summit 2021 Discusses COVID's Impact On Gender Equations

Gender Equality Summit 2021: Standing committed towards Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, United Nations Global Compact Network India (UN-GCNI) hosted the fourth edition of Gender Equality Summit (GES), virtually, on March 9 and 10. 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 attended by Smriti Zubin Irani, Union Cabinet Minister of Ministry of Women & Child Development, and Ministry of Textiles. Ram Mohan Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development, GoI, Shashi Shanker, CMD ONGC groups of companies and President, GCNI, Olajobi Makinwa, Chief, Intergovernmental Relations & Africa, UN Global Compact (New York) and Susan Ferguson, Country Representative, UN Women, India were also in attendance.

The summit witnessed over 800 delegates from across the sectors and more 15 CEOs from national and global businesses attending UN-GCNI’s fourth Gender Equality 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 Irani said.

To this, Mishra added, "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."

Elaborating on how the corporate sector can play a crucial role in strengthening women leadership in the country, Shankar said, "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."

Ferguson, on the other hand, opined that as 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.”