Show Notes: 

I don't want to brag but in two weeks we will be 25 episodes old. So, I would like to thank my wonderful guests and listeners across the world for their unstinting support. The Elephant in the Room podcast is my continuous listening and learning project so I am pleased to say that it can be yours too - It is available on CIPR CPD

Happy coincidence that today is Earth day and this episode is about the imperatives for gender diversity. A recent report places empowering women and girls as the second most important solution(amongst 76) for curbing global warming to 2 degree celsius. Gender equality is central to the SDGs any slowdown in achieving that will compromise the ability to achieve all of the SDG goals. 2030 is on the horizon and all stakeholders need to really hunker down if we are to meet targets on gender empowerment. In this episode I share stories about the what governments and businesses are doing and can do to ensure that girls and women are able to grow and thrive; my association with PRADAN; the UK governments Pledge for Progress initiative; the world benchmarking alliance; the business case and the moral imperative; legislation as a lever of progress; data etc....

If you are passionate about ensuring women's voices are heard and they have a seat on the table

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Memorable Passages from the episode

👉🏾 Hey everyone thank you for tuning in. I am your host Sudha Singh. I have been planning this episode for sometime so I am really excited to be here. Spring has sprung, the sun is shining and hope is in the air. The vaccine programme in the UK has largely been successful; and we are emerging from the lockdown gradually. There was some seasonal levity with the caterpillar wars between M&S and Aldi and there is absolutely no reason to dwell on a recent government race report - because reports don't necessarily drive action. 

👉🏾 But first I must thank all of you for helping The Elephant in the Room podcast get to where we are today. We have just two more episodes to go before we hit quarter century. I will forever be grateful to my guests who have been unstintingly supportive and the wonderful audiences from across the world who have deepened my faith in the raison d'etre of the podcast. I have been privileged to have conversations with inspiring guests from across the world on issues related to societal conflict, organisational purpose and how individuals and businesses can embed equity and inclusion into their DNA. Launching the podcast and my consultancy was about finding my 'why' my purpose, the rest is going to be about finding the how. How can I make the world a better place, how I can help my clients be better, do better. We are doing some things and striving to do more. So stay tuned. 

👉🏾 In this episode I want to focus on the imperatives for gender diversity for a sustainable future. However, let me start by talking about something that is personal to me. If you have been following the news you must have heard that from Friday 23rd April India will be added to the list of red countries. The announcement was neither surprising nor unexpected considering the sudden and catastrophic rise of COVID cases in India. What this means for me and millions of Indian diaspora is that it is going to be awhile longer before we can meet family and friends. So, no trade deal and no travel for the foreseeable future - there is really no way to put a positive spin to this. In my case nearly 13months since I met my mother who lives on her own, has limited mobility and suffered from a particularly bad bout of COVID late last year. I was gutted for myself but more so for my mother. For most of my adult life now I have straddled the two continents due to my caring responsibilities. The situation is not unique to me however, it is the same for millions of women(and men perhaps) across the world. A 2021 research found that women are more than twice as likely than men to quit their jobs because of caring responsibilities and on average women become a carer over a decade before men. The important thing to remember is that intersectionality is at heart of inclusion.

👉🏾 The second story neatly segues(SEGWAYS) into the first. I recently attended the launch of ' a girl led and centred participatory research ' report about the impact of COVID in India. The study led by Empower was supported by the UK Foreign Commonwealth Development Office. 25 girls between the ages of 18-24 from urban areas in India were trained as leaders and then went out and interviewed 153 other girls in their communities. The purpose was to understand how COVID had impacted them and as Empower put it ' set out to intentionally listen to the girls, centre their voices, entrust them with decision-making responsibilities and invest in them. In Indian cities girls in marginalised communities are invisible citizens; the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns has been devastating for them. The report came up with 37 pieces of advice as per their prioritisation and these intersected with UN SDGs including SDG 5 on Gender Equality; SDG 10 on Reduced Inequalities; SDG3: Good Health and Well Being; SDG 4: Quality Education and SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

👉🏾 Recommendations included educating girls and women to know and exercise their rights; value their decisions and choices; provide access to safe, good quality, blended options to education; invest in employability and leadership training; the right to work and equal pay; affordable housing; clean toilets; streetlights; transportation; safety of girls through engagement with law enforcement and communities. The list goes on but what is heartbreaking is that a lot of what they are asking for is a given in developed countries. So, where you are born can impact your life chances(this is true for everyone) but more so for girls and women. 

👉🏾 The report goes on to say that Covid 19 exacerbated existing gender inequities for adolescent girls and young women. The lockdown increased unpaid care work, early marriage, exclusion neglect and the closing up of spaces for mutual support and solidarity. Additionally girls and families faced economic burdens that diminished their capacity to obtain and afford health services and menstrual products; many of the girls did not have the resources, technology or equipment to attend online schools. 

👉🏾 The report also has asks for various stakeholders including governments, the private sector, NGOs, donors but most importantly it asks to be at the heart/centre of any decision - to have a seat at the table. To be able to speak for themselves and what their needs are; to be able to give inputs into policy interventions; to be instrumental to any design and donor decisions. That is powerful stuff - I was deeply moved and in awe when the 17 girl leaders spoke about the initiative and what they wanted from it. This is what real equality and equity is about.  

👉🏾 By encouraging girls to speak up and use their voice the initiative is empowering them with the knowledge and confidence to help make change/strive for change or be a leader. The most important take away from the session - don't decide for the marginalised what they want and need, allow them the space to speak up and be heard and make decisions about what will help them thrive. 

👉🏾 So, I was invited to attend the session because I am a partner/signatory to the Pledge for Progress  campaign that was launched last year by the ‘UK in India’ network and over 100 partners launched a joint commitment to promote gender equality and take practical steps to tackle gender challenges. You can find details on UK government, UK in India, pledge for progress website 

👉🏾 As a DEI practitioner, Co-Chair of the PRCA Diversity Network and Founding Member of REEB, I am deeply passionate about shifting the dial on gender diversity; helping girls and women to unlock and achieve their potential. Since, I started my DEI journey 20 years at the Commonwealth Business Council, I have harboured ambitions to help enable change in the country of my birth. It took me a while to get there - like 18 years, for me to opt out of my so called career path before I could live that aspiration. My association with PRADAN, one of India's oldest and most respected third sector organisation began in 2018. 

👉🏾 PRADAN’s founders believed, that India’s development cause is served better when educated Indians work directly with the poor, which is as important as working in industries and commercial sectors...’, Fundamental to that belief is that all people, no matter how poor, are capable of driving the change they need. PRADAN works in the poorest regions of India to help vulnerable communities especially women organise collectives that help earn a decent living and come out of intergenerational poverty. 

👉🏾 PRADAN works with some of the biggest Indian and global donors including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Walmart Foundation, IKEA Foundation, Tata Trusts, Azim Premji Foundation along with facilitating rural livelihoods programmes for the central and state governments. In the past three years I have had an opportunity to learn from the audacious goals being set by PRADAN to positively impact the lives of communities. 

👉🏾 It has been powerful to witness the convening power of women from hitherto marginalised communities, congregating in thousands to hear their stories and celebrate their culture. Success sits lightly on their shoulders and as a group they seem invincible, aware of their rights and not scared to raise their voices for a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. At PRADAN this is what success looks like. There is much to celebrate and feel positive about. This is democracy at work...... And perhaps there is some learning from how disenfranchised women are uniting to make themselves heard. I have only seen this kind of convening power in cities when there is activism involved. Which makes me think....

👉🏾 The knock on effects of the pandemic mean that more women than ever before have been forced to step back or step out of the job market. Working women across the world are struggling with longer working hours, absence of workplace socialising, juggling multiple responsibilities, dealing with exclusionary behaviour, lack of empathy, poor mental health, unsupportive work culture, pay disparity and a fear of stalling career progression. There is also clear evidence that the pandemic is reinforcing traditional social and cultural norms and proof of that is in evident from the Empower report.  

👉🏾 Even before the pandemic, India’s female labour force participation was the lowest in South Asia. Women account for only 19.9% of the total labor force in India. In urban areas women spent 312 minutes per day and 291 minutes per day in rural areas on unpaid care work in 2018. By contrast, men spent only 29 minutes and 32 minutes respectively. So it was hardly surprising, then, that last year India dropped two spots to 131 out of 189 countries on the  and scored low on the gender index.

👉🏾 However, it is important to note that India is one of the emerging countries to embrace gender quotas: the 2013 Companies Act made it compulsory for listed companies to have at least one women director. By 2017 82.8 % of NIFTY 500 companies appointed a single woman to their board while the rest appointed 2 or more. India’s 2013 Companies Act was successful in significantly enlarging the pool of distinct women serving as directors. This is a notable step in the right direction. Legislation is a key lever to achieving gender equity and equality. 

👉🏾 Shamistha Selvaratnam, gender lead at the World Benchmarking Alliance(WBA) spoke last week about the need for transformative change to achieve gender equality. She stressed on the need for companies to really shift their approach from avoiding gender-related impacts and disclosing what is necessary to meet legislative requirements to proactively addressing inequalities. And for companies to stop focusing on only preventing harm to women to taking actions that have positive impact on women. And for those who don't know the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) is an organisation established to measure and rank the 2,000 most influential companies globally on their contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These keystone companies spread across 74 countries with combined revenues of $43 trillion have a critical role to play in whether the SDGs are accomplished or not. The scale and influence of these companies is staggering. 

👉🏾 Progress on gender diversity and women in leadership has been painfully slow across the so called developed countries also. Notable exceptions in business are Unilever and Danone who are ahead of the game. At Unilever the CEO chairs their global diversity board. Members of the board are tasked with driving gender balance within their parts of the business and their results depend on it. Improving gender representation is written into their annual business and development targets. And without going into too much detail a culture change programme was instrumental to success. What if some if not all companies did what Unilever did? 

👉🏾 In the US Melinda Gates has been championing gender equality committing $1 billion in 2019 to expanding women's power and influence in the US over a decade. Was this driven to some extent by a 2018 report that there were fewer women running Fortune 500 companies than men named James. Sounds crazy right? Maybe, but sounds fairly predictable. What about countries that have neither the legislative policies in place nor the money to accelerate the cause of gender equality? 

👉🏾 With a score of 67.9 out of 100, the EU is at least 60 years away from reaching complete gender equality, if we continue at the current pace. The latest Gender Equality Index from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) shows that the EU is improving by just half a point each year. The indicators are closely linked to EU targets and international commitments such as the Beijing Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the biggest problems holding back gender equality is segregation in education and work. This means a concentration of either women or men in certain subjects or jobs. Despite efforts to tackle this issue, such as special initiatives to encourage women to study science, engineering or ICT, segregation has actually increased since 2010. In the EU, only two out of ten ICT jobs are held by women In March 2020 the EU announced it would attempt to reach a gender balance of 50 percent by the end of 2024. 

👉🏾 And in 2021 the UK had just 6 female CEOs on FTSE 100, the gender pay gap between average male and female CEOs was at 17% but if you consider the difference between the highest male CEO and female CEO it was an eye watering 90%. There is some good news though, the government backed Hampton Alexander review has achieved its target of 33% of board positions at and FTSE 350. No room for complacency however, since there are only 17 female CEOs across all 350 companies.

👉🏾 We have been hearing about making the business case for gender diversity/diversity for decades now. But, do we really need to make a business case to ensure that everyone is treated fairly in society and the workplace? I think this is a question we need to ask ourselves as individuals? A 2013 HBR research of 24 CEOs from across the globe showed that each of the 24 approached inclusivity as a personal mission. 

👉🏾 They believed it was a business imperative if their companies needed to stay competitive but they believed it was their moral imperative because of their personal experiences and values. A CEO’s commitment often arises from his or her own understanding of what it means to be an outsider. In the ensuing 7 years progress has been fairly slow. However, in 2021 the drivers for equality and equity have changed - the past twelve months have added a sense of urgency and accelerated conversations around equality, equity and exclusion. More organisations than every before are keen to align their core purpose to broader societal needs. At some point it has to be unacceptable that women make up half the world but struggle to find a seat at the table and make themselves heard. 

👉🏾 It is also important to note that legislation on its own is not a panacea, and the private sector should not wait for cues from the government to determine what action they must take. Without the impetus, engagement, investment and accountability from the private sector we will be unable make any meaningful change. Finally, the thing to remember is that there can be no sustainable development without gender equality, UN SDG 5 exists for a reason. 

I will end with a quote by Christine Lagarde, President of ECB ' When women do better, economies do better' 

Thank you for listening to The Elephant in the Room podcast. I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, suggestions so bring them on. 

You can follow Sudha on: 

Twitter: @Sudha1404

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudha-singh-424ba53/

Important links

👉🏾 https://www.prca.org.uk/REEB-Story-QandA-Sudha-Singh

👉🏾 https://www.communicatemagazine.com/industry-updates/moves/2021/sudha-singh-annoucned-co-chair-of-prca-diversity-network/

👉🏾 https://thepurposeroom.org/

👉🏾 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-elephant-in-the-room/id1540074396

👉🏾 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-in-india-pledge-for-progress

👉🏾 worldbenchmarkingalliance.org