Johannesburg, 08 March 2022.
Today on International Women’s Day, the United Nations, Governments, Corporations, Civil Society Organisations, Communities, and individuals across the world elevate advocacy on gender equality.
Around the world, the UN Global Compact will Ring the Bell for Gender Equality in collaboration with the IFC, Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative, UN Women and The World Federation of Exchanges. This year’s theme being – “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, which aims to highlight and recognize the contribution of women and girls around the world, who are leading the charge on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and response, to build a more sustainable future for all.
The Global Compact Network South Africa (GCNSA) will once again join the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and others to Ring the Bell for Gender Equality, continuing to raise awareness within the corporate sector on how to drive behaviour change needed to ensuring gender equality.
In South Africa, March is also Human Rights month and as we Ring the Bell for Gender Equality, we must also acknowledge that even though as a country we have made great strides since the achievement of political freedom in 1994, significant deficits in the achievement of socio-economic rights exist.
These deficits further deepen inequalities that continue to manifest in multiple interconnected ways through gender, class, race, age, sexual orientation, and disability. Women, especially black women, are most affected by these inequalities and often face multiple experiences of discrimination simultaneously.
This International Women’s Day, we call on Business to play an active role in progressing the socio-economic rights of women by:
- Promoting women’s access to finance and encouraging women to invest in public markets.
- Developing new products, such as sustainability-linked bonds with gender criteria and gender bonds.
- Signing and adopting the Women’s Empowerment Principles, which offer guidance to businesses on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community
- Promoting gender equality listing criteria and gender data disclosure
- Ensuring the closure of the Gender pay gap
The Global Compact Network supports companies through the Target Gender Equality Programme Accelerator.
For more information, contact Nichole Solomons at info@globalcompactsa.org.za
