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Consultation Report: Women’s Empowerment Principles Business Promotes Gender Equality On September 28, 2013 CARE India hosted the North Region WEPs Consultation in partnership with UN Women and Global Compact Network India. 37 representatives primarily from the corporate sector participated in the half day consultation. This report captures the highlights of the consultation.
Background: CARE India is implementing a project supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK Government to build a stronger commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment within corporate sector in India. This project will build upon the work that CARE India, UN WOMEN and Global Compact Network etwork India (GCNI) have done so far to help strengthen the commitment to and practice of gender equality principles in the private sector through the WEPs Proje Project. The Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), developed collaboratively, between UN WOMEN and UNGCN, GCN, provide guidance for businesses on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. The proposed WEPs WEP Project is embedded in the Human n Rights Based Approach (HRBA), and is aligned to both the objectives of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and supports the overarching UN-Women UN Strategic Plan 2011-2013. 2013. In India, despite an increase in women’s work participati participation on from 25.7% in 2001 to 32.2% in 2004 20042005, participation has dropped to 22% in 2009-2010, 2009 2010, and women continue to face unfair discrimination and problems of sexual harassment in the workplace. A 2010 McKinsey study has shown only 5% of women are on company company boards or as CEOs in India. In another McKinsey survey,
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57% of female respondents stated that the double burden of work and domestic responsibilities are the biggest barriers to workplace participation and career advancement. Similarly, within the informal rmal sector, women are acknowledged as representing the bulk of the agricultural workforce but are often the lowest paid and work under the worst conditions. The WEPs therefore function as a catalyst for change, within corporations, committed to driving the gender equality and women’s empowerment agenda within the organization. This collaborative project aims to not only increase the commitment of corporations to integrate WEPs into their policies, but also to provide guidance on implementation at different ent levels and within different functions within the organization. In December 2011 CARE India, UN Women and GCN GCNI together created a WEP platform for companies in India. A Primer on WEPs in the Indian perspective was launched during an event attended by representatives presentatives from more than 30 companies. This platform is now evolving into a deeper engagement with Indian companies on WEPs.
Consultation: On September 28, 2013 CARE India hosted the North Region WEPs Consultation in partnership with UN Women and Globall Compact Network India. 37 representatives primarily from the corporate sector participated in the half day consultation. The objective of the consultation was – 1. To build a stronger commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment within corporate sector in India. 2. To share ‘best practices’ and salute business leaders on corporate leadership in promoting gender equality. The opening session laid the context of the WEPs initiative in general and the project in specific. Dr. Muhammad Musa, CEO and Country Director, CARE India spoke about the need for the empowerment of women (and girls) in India. CARE, through its program in India focuses on the empowerment of women and girls by creating an environment that helps bring women at par with men. He stressed essed on the fact that women have a role equal to men in household, community and
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the workplace. CARE is committed to work with business leaders in India to create equal opportunities for women at the workplace and WEPs is a critical platform to be able to do this. Alka Pathak, Senior Adviser Advocacy and External Relations, CARE India stated a few facts and figures about the working environment of women in India. India. She also shared our vision of reducing discrimination and inequity towards women in private sector se through rough promoting gender equitable policies and practices. Sushma Kapoor, Deputy Representative, UN Women Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka presented the business case for gender equity and why gender equity means business. She highlighted hted the lack of an enabling environment for women’s empowerment in India Inc. She also presented facts on how some companies play a leadership role in promoting gender equity and how it is making business sense for them. Pooran Pande,, Executive Director, Global Compact Network India, presented the global perspective of women’s empowerment principles. He spoke about the genesis of the WEPs and its relevance in the present business context. He also spoke about the increased importance of the WEPs in India and the need for better reporting. Pradyumna Bora,, Programme Manager, British High Commission, spoke about the significance and need for an initiative on women’s empowerment and how it aligns with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s priority in the Business Busines and Human Rights framework. Shikha Rastogi, Vice President HR of ITV Networks (NewsX), newest WEPs signatory in India spoke about their efforts of promoting equality through community initiatives and advocacy. ITV is also the only media company to have signed the WEPs in India. She presented the company’s CSR initiative to promote Women Education in the he society. ITV is committed to internalising the WEPs in the company. Rashmi Singh, Executive Director, Gender Equality and Diversity, CARE India launched aunched the WEPs research. The research aims to learn the present status of gender equity policies and practices in Indian companies. The baseline study would be conducted with 40 companies, identified from across 10 sectors. This research will help in identifying best strategies that would lead to effective implementation of WEPs in India.
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Research: CARE India plans to conduct an exploratory study to identify pathways that lead businesses in effective implementation of WEPss in India and have contracted the services es of a team of social experts to lead this study. The study will support development of evidence-based evidence based corporate strategies that accelerate the promotion of women’s empowerment in the Indian context. It is a good opportunity for companies to showcase good practices, learning from good practices of other businesses involved in the study and participating in a global dialogue on how businesses can contribute towards to women’s empowerment through such platforms.
Successes and Challenges – Group Perspective: The participants were divided into 5 groups with the task of identifying the successes and challenges with respect to each Principle. An interesting result of this exercise was that most successes were recorded at the policy creation level where as, there were hardly any at the business and supply chain level. The results of the exercise are summarised below: Principle 1 - Establish high- level corporate leadership for gender equality. Success: 1. Slight increase in the number of women working at the top managerial nagerial levels. Challenges: 1. Need for a change in the mindset of the society towards powerful, strong and independent women. 2. Implementation mplementation of gender sensitive policies need to be ensured – identifying factors that affect both men and women
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Principle 2 - Treat all women and men fairly at workwork respect and support human rights and non nondiscrimination. Success: 1. Policies are being framed to treat both men and women fairly at work, in terms of training, safety and opportunities. Challenges: 1. Women are being left behind due to limitations limitations like work life balance or travelling and long working hours issues. 2. Policies olicies providing flexible work option, equal pay remuneration including benefits, for work of equal value and leave and re-entry re opportunities to both men and women at all levels need to be incorporated. Principle 3- Ensure the health safety and well being of all women and men workers. Success: 1. Zero-tolerance tolerance policies towards all forms of violence at work, including prevention of sexual harassment are being established in big multinational companies. Challenges: 1. Security ecurity issues of both men and women, travelling to and from work on daily basis and on company related business need to be identified and addressed. 2. Strive to provide better health and employment employment schemes to employees at all levels. Principle 4- Promote education, training and professional development for women. Success: 1. Both men and women are being provided with proper training and professional skill development programs. Challenge: 1. Women need to be encouraged to enter en non- traditional job fields.
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Principle 5- Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women. Challenges: 1. Expansion of business relationships with womenwomen owned enterprises, including small business entrepreneurs. 2. Focus on training women vendors and create reservation for women in supply chain. 3. Ensure that company’s products, services and facilities are not used for human trafficking or labour/sexual exploitation. Principle 6- Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy. Success: 1. CSR and Volunteering programs are focusing on community development initiatives and women oriented programs Challenge: 1.
Women’s omen’s leadership in, and contributions to, their communities need to be promoted.
Principle 7- Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality. Success: 1. Sustainability reports are generally restricted to environment. However, a few multinational ltinational companies have started sharing progress reports within the organization. Challenge: 1. Absence of transparency in measuring and reporting of progress using data disaggregated by sex, both internally and externally.
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Way Forward: Opinions,
ideas,
perspectives
and
feedback
received from all our representatives are helping us build the WEPs research tool. The tool developed will help us detail the set of questions that would enable in depth probing for analysis to examine the emergingg trends and practices in India.. One critical element that emerged in this regard from the consultation was the need to include a across section of women in industry or those who were there in the past to get their views and actual experiences. For queries please write to – weps@careindia.org
Next Consultation: Next WEPs consultation is scheduled on November 27 in Mumbai. For registration and more information please contact – nagarwal@careindia.org.