This fortnight, women’s leadership has been front and centre as we prepare for our next Rebuild Better Virtual Summit on Gender, which takes place over three days on 9-11 March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Our three live webinars will explore how business can help to support women’s leadership as well as breaking down barriers to women’s economic empowerment.
Each day of our programme will explore these challenges in three areas of action:
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- Tuesday 9 March: How can we unleash women’s enterprise? Hosted with UN Women,
- Wednesday 10 March: How can we tackle GBV in the workplace? Hosted with Care International UK
- Thursday 11 March: Empowering women in Agricultural Value Chains. Hosted with Cargill and CARE USA
Join us at these free live sessions to hear practical examples of action from across different regions and organisations, deepen your knowledge of the issues, and gain actionable insights. You can also explore our event resources – community-generated video, audio and written content on each of our three themes.
At the end of last year, Harvard Business Review published new research indicating that ‘women were rated better leaders than men by those who worked with them’, and that the ratings gap has increased during the Covid-19 crisis. Two of our articles this week addressed how businesses can support women to lead, and explained why this is so essential for achieving both organisational success and the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Uncovering Vulnerability Inspires Authentic Leadership, writes Joan Harper, Bpeace Women Forward Director. Her article explores the work of The Coaching Fellowship to provide young women leaders access to the kind of executive coaching usually reserved for valued professionals at a much later stage of their careers. The initiative’s founder, Jane Finnette, believes that identifying and working with vulnerabilities is a “game changer”: “the sooner you are deeply aligned with who you are at your core, the more confidence you will have to make decisions based on your beliefs and goals.”
- In her article, Srabani Sen OBE, CEO and Founder, Full Colour and Chair of Trustees of ActionAid UK, explains Why we need to radically reimagine leadership to achieve gender equality. WEF recently estimated that it will take 257 years for women to experience economic equality with men, but it need not take this long. Srabani shares how Action Aid’s feminist leadership principles offer a way to drive gender equality as well as organisational success. “At its heart, feminist leadership principles are about harnessing equality to drive organisational excellence.”
Whilst action on gender equality helps to give businesses the competitive edge, so too does embracing the transition to a green economy. Two of our articles this week focused on the need for businesses to take a proactive and joined-up approach to this pressing issue.
- In What are Green Skills? Charles Arthur, Communications Officer, UNIDO shares insights from the Green General Skill index, identifying four skill groups that will be particularly important for the transition to a green economy. Charles also highlights how public-private partnerships are catalysing the development of green skills in developing and emerging economies. “Education is an investment and not a cost. As the development of green technologies moves ahead at pace, reskilling and upskilling current and future workers to fulfill the requirements of the green transition is a strategic move not to be missed.”
- A just transition is undermined by a disconnect between human rights and climate issues, warns the World Benchmarking Alliance, who have compared assessments of company performance on human rights and advancing the low-carbon transition in the automotive sector, with alarming results. “The lack of correlation suggests that many automotive manufacturers still consider climate and human rights issues separately to be addressed independently of each other, despite the fact that they are increasingly recognised as interconnected.” The article suggests that tackling supply chain management is key.
Business Fights’ Poverty also engages regularly on the theme of food systems – particularly on how they relate to livelihoods and the resilience of vulnerable communities. Heifer International have contributed to this discussion with their new article, explaining how ‘Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers in Ecuador have innovated a whole new food system. This article gives insights into how Heifer’s work with the Future of Food Programme is helping thousands of small-scale farming families in Ecuador to close the living income gap and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Encouragingly, their approach is also sparking a new-found appreciation for the invaluable contribution of small-scale farmers to society. According to Rosa Rodriguez, Director of Heifer Ecuador, “This crisis showed us that food producers are first responders, just like doctors and nurses, because they guarantee people’s health by delivering nutritious and safe food.”
Last but by no means least, our Spotlight Podcast this week is with Lisa Manley, Global Vice President of Sustainability, Mars. It is an unmissable masterclass on delivering and creating impact. Lisa shares her practical advice and a wealth of insights into Mars’ work on human rights, supply chain collaboration and next generation sourcing; farmer incomes, including insight into their Farmer Income Lab, their platform for action on addressing poverty in global agriculture supply chains; and the opportunities for women, through their Full Potential Mar Platform on Gender. Lisa also pinpoints the emerging trends that she is focused on for the future. “Poverty is the elephant in the room in addressing sustainable development.”
