Today, March 8, marks International Women’s Day 2022. AmCham celebrated this important day with a webinar on Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow featuring two speakers from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The webinar was an initiative of AmCham’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee.
Women are critical to the development of prosperous communities, but many programs, initiatives, and corporate and governmental strategies continue to lack a gender lens. Sandra Pellegrom, National SDG Coordinator in the Netherlands and Maaike Hofman, Deputy Head of the Taskforce Women's Rights and Gender Equality, together with today's moderator Nilgun Langenberg, Head of Consumer Market EMEA at Korn Ferry and Chair of AmCham's Diversity and Inclusion Committee, discussed how the SDGs can inspire businesses and governments to contribute and take action.
Sandra stated that the 17 SDGs establish a standard for a sustainable society and world. Gender equality, goal 5, is the basis of all other goals. Without gender equality, the other goals have a lower probability of success. She added that if current trends continue, we will be 135 years away from achieving the SDGs. The Netherlands is currently ranked 31st in terms of SDG achievement, indicating that there is still much work to be done in the Netherlands.
Maaike discussed the work she and her taskforce are doing to advance gender equality. Her taskforce has identified four critical subgoals: increasing female leadership and participation decision-making, giving women a stronger voice in economic matters (economic empowerment), preventing and ending violence against women, and strengthening women's role in managing/resolving conflicts. The taskforce seeks to accomplish this through three strategies: gender mainstreaming, gender diplomacy at international organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and their own programming, which supports and funds women's rights organizations and movements.
At the end of the session, Nilgun asked the two speakers what companies can do to contribute to the journey towards gender equality. Sandra responded by emphasizing the importance of comprehending that equality does not imply that everyone should be treated equally. Occasionally, this means treating someone differently due to their unique needs. This is diversity in its core. According to Maaike, who was unaware of the importance of gender equality prior to joining the taskforce, she believes it is critical for companies to gain a better understanding of what gender equality is and why it is important. Companies should prioritize it, put it high on their agenda and make it discussable with colleagues.
AmCham expresses its sincere gratitude to Sandra Pellegrom and Maaike Hofman for sharing their expertise on the topic and to Nilgun Langenberg for moderating the session. .
