Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2015 08:46 AM PST
UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to achieving gender equality and women's empowerment, has unveiled a pilot initiative to galvanise momentum in advancing gender equality and women's empowerment. The HeForShe campaign's IMPACT 10x10x10 initiative is a one-year pilot that aims to engage governments, corporations and universities as instruments of change. These three groups are found within some of the communities that most need to address deficiencies in women's empowerment and gender equality and so have the greatest capacity to make and influence those changes. The idea is that each sector will identify approaches for addressing gender inequality, and pilot test the effectiveness of these interventions for scalability. IMPACT 10x10x10 was launched at a press conference attended by the President Paul Kagame of Rwanda; the Prime Minister Stefan Löfven of Sweden; the UN's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UN's Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka; the UN's Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Emma Watson; and Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever. Speaking at the launch, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "HeForShe has signed up fathers who want to raise empowered daughters; leaders who know their societies will be stronger when there are as many women in parliament and in business as men; and ordinary people who are fed up with violence and discrimination against women – and want to be part of a global force for change." "This is a partnership campaign involving individuals and corporations, government leaders and grass-roots activists, great celebrities and global citizens. HeForShe is the United Nations in your countries and communities." The inaugural global leaders who will serve as IMPACT 10x10x10 founding Champions will steer the initiative, providing leadership in mobilising their communities. Findings from the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2014 highlighted the currently large gap between men and women in terms of political engagement and opportunity and how there has been little improvement in equality for women in the workplace since 2006. And it is because of that gender inequality, IMPACT 10x10x10 is to prioritise legislative bodies and corporations. Universities are joining the 'impact trio' because youth engagement represents one of the greatest opportunities for accelerating progress toward achieving gender equality and ending violence against women. "The groundswell of response we have received in support for HeForShe tells us we are tapping into what the world wants: to be a part of change," Emma Watson explained. "Now we have to channel that energy into purposeful action. "The pilot initiative provides that framework. "Next we need all country leadership, as well as that of hundreds of universities and corporations to follow HeForShe's IMPACT 10x10x10 so as to bring an end to the persisting inequalities faced by women and girls globally." Several heads of state, celebrities and thousands of men from around the world, have already committed themselves to being champions for the HeForShe campaign. "Ultimately," Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said, "we need everyone to get involved if we are to turn the tide."  |
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