A year after their selection as a winning project for innovative global governance, the International Gender Champions were back at the second edition of the Paris Peace Forum from 11 to 13 November 2019.
Organisers of the Forum recognise that the global challenges we face today ignore borders and that collaboration is becoming increasingly difficult as countries turn inwards. Their aim is to bridge the governance gap and foster international cooperation and collective action.
The International Gender Champions demonstrated that closing the gender gap is both a precondition to closing the governance gap, and a catalyst for it.
These are the highlights:
- After Geneva, New York, Vienna, Nairobi and The Hague, the IGC launched a new hub in Paris with the exceptional participation of President Emmanuel Macron. Some 10 founding Champions have already joined the Paris network, including the Secretary-Generals of the OECD, the International Organisation of La Francophonie, the Director-General of UNESCO, the head of Plan International France, as well as several Paris-based Ambassadors.
- A panel discussion enabled founding Champions of the Paris Hub to highlight their personal commitments, the importance of advancing gender equality in their spheres of influence and expertise, and call on further leaders to join them in this endeavor.
- The IGC Secretariat pitched “A thousand steps closer to gender equality”, and presented the network’s achievements since its creation in 2015 in Geneva in advancing organisational culture, parity, programmatic work and policies in trade, disarmament, standards. Whilst highlighting the impact of each personal step by leaders and the cascading influence on culture, practices and norms in multilateral hubs, we called on everyone gathered to make the next thousand commitments, and collectively work to achieve more systemic change
