Call for best practices and innovations towards Gender-Responsive Assemblies

 



In recent weeks, several International Gender Champions and the international community as a whole have called for a more gender-responsive environment at assemblies and large conferences, with campaigns, statements and advocacy activities to ensure that organizations and international forums are sexism-free and harassment-free. See:





This builds up on the on-going work of the International Gender Champions initiative towards the equal participation of women and men in decision-making at all levels, through the IGC Panel Parity Pledge, the work of the IGC Representation Impact Group and the 2017 IGC - UN Women publication entitled “Shaping the international agenda: Raising women’s voices in intergovernmental forums”.



The time is now for robust measures and a cultural shift across the board to ensure that all assemblies and governing bodies meetings are gender-responsive, namely that they advance gender equality in participation and governance, through their agenda and outputs, and in their working environment, which must be sexism-free and harassment-free. Therefore, the IGC Representation Impact Group is calling on IGC partners to share innovative good practices, including on:




  • Explicit policies and mandated targets;

  • Dedicated internal structures on gender equality and/or gender mainstreaming;

  • Tracking and reporting;

  • Training and capacity-building;

  • Financial support;

  • Advocacy and networking;

  • Communications strategies.



For instance, means and tools can range from host country agreements, invitation letters to delegations, representation incentives, panel selection criteria, sharing data publicly (dashboard, infographics, etc.), gender as a standing agenda item...to internal policies, capacity building, accountability mechanisms and governance.



>> Please kindly submit your organization’s best practices (including sample text and letters used by Champions to delegations, panel organizers and participants, etc.) by:





A toolkit with organizational best practices will be shared in the fall.