March 8 of every year has been set aside by the international community to reflect, deliberate and celebrate the journey of women through time. This is journey that started over 100 years ago with a fight for equal opportunity and emolument in the work place. The focus of this year’s theme is on the work place and the changes impacting it. ‘It is tagged, women in the changing World of work: Planet 50-50 by 2030.’
As part of activities to mark the day, women are calling on everyone, male or female, to show their support by choosing an activity which relates to organisations, individuals, governments, businesses or institutions that have shown or taken bold steps to achieve gender parity.
Last year, the international community supported the call for #PledgeforParity campaign and committed itself to enabling factors for the achievement of the ambitions of women and girls by challenging conscious and unconscious bias, while calling for gender-balanced leadership, same value on contributions of men and women as well as creation of inclusive flexible cultures.
As part of activities marking the 2017 International Women’s Day (IWD), the 61st session of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (CSW61), will be deliberating on ‘Women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work’ from March 13 to 24, 2017. This discussion aims at building on the UN Women’s #StepItUp initiative. The idea is to garner momentum for an accelerated achievement of the 2030 agenda. This achievement is seen as an important step towards effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with particular interests on goals 4 and 5, both of which call for concerted efforts to ensure inclusive quality education and promotion of lifelong learning, achievement of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls to help them in the attainment of their ambitions in the face of conscious and unconscious bias usually inherent in gender- unbalanced leadership.
The 2017 IWD hashtag, #BeBoldforChangeNOW challenges everyone to take bold concrete action that will truly drive the change for women. The Nigerian woman is multi-faceted because she wears the face of many tribes and tongues, beliefs and practices, some favourable to her wellbeing and others outrightly disempowering. The average Nigerian woman is resilient and full of strength. In our view, has come a long way to set her mark in many fields. Politics and leadership attainment, however, are some of her greatest challenges. Agreeably, some women who have found themselves in positions of leadership in Nigeria are not our best eleven. Notwithstanding, the nature of politics in our clime has tended to impact negatively on leadership attainments for women. But that is not to say that we don’t have women who have proven themselves in politics and positions of leadership. The argument is for a level playing field.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has predicted that the gap in gender balance won’t close until the year 2186. This outlook is what informed the step-it-up initiative and the follow up call for #BeBoldForChange. In the face of this prediction, the outlook is not good. This is why, in our opinion, all agencies of government, the private sector, NGOs, individuals and celebrities, must all push to close this gap.
The world of work is fast changing and the implication for women is profound. Globalisation, technological advancement, environmental degradation and climate change all combine to make the challenges more demanding for the woman. On the one hand, these factors play key role in the changes that are occurring in the world of work. They pose challenges and opportunities in realising women’s economic potential for a better tomorrow but only for those that have the access and are equipped. On the other, society is confronted with growing informality of labour, unstable livelihoods and incomes, new fiscal and trade policies, environmental impacts that demand to be addressed within the context of women’s empowerment, largely because women are half the world’s potential.
To this extent, therefore, if the Sustainable Development Goals are to be reached and economies sustained, we must work to unleash this potential. And this simply requires access to decent, good quality paid work as well as gender-sensitive policies, laws and regulations that enhance women’s potentials.
The United Nations Secretary General, in his goodwill message, called on all countries and their governments, public and private agencies, non –government and non-profit organisations, individuals and civil societies to pledge to do everything possible to overcome entrenched prejudice, support engagements and activism aimed at promoting gender equality. We totally agree with this call and hope that all will heed it.
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