A message to women
INTERNATIONAL Women's Day is a reminder to us to celebrate women's achievements and accomplishments in the various spheres of society — economic, social, political and any other structures that they participate in.
It is also a time to take stock of and reflect on the progress that women have made on gaining equality in their representation in the institutional structures of society.
Women are a key contributor to all the activities in life and without them the world cannot perform never mind exist.
Women are a substantial contributor to socio-economic growth whether they are in a formal or informal employment.
If in formal employment, they contribute in more than one role; as income earner, financial contributor, caregiver and support structure for the family to perform at its best.
However, their contributions have been and continue to be underestimated and trivialised. Their representation in the various sectors and functions of society remains embarrassing and something to be frowned upon.
Women continue to be paid lesser than men in most countries, their numbers in decision making levels continue to be an eye brow raiser.
Global organisations and many institutions are throwing much light upon the need to achieve a fairer representation of women and their voices in decision making.
Questions continue to be asked about how to fix the inequity. The challenge still remains very real and very much a work in progress.
The UN for a number of years has been pushing out challenges to the world on the need to even out the playing field for women, in terms of their participation and decision making levels.
This year the UN theme for IWD is "Each for Equal " which again compels us to work harder at achieving equality.
It also reminds us we all, men, women and everyone else need to work together and put the agenda for equality among the top priorities if it is not there already.
Women in Business has been and continues to advocate for women's leadership in business and commerce.
We continue to;
Provide exchange platforms for women to progress in commerce and business;
Provide training for networking, upskilling and knowledge exchange; and
Hold our annual business Awards to acknowledge and celebrate women.
We are holding a few events this week and later in this month as we will continue the focus on women in this month of March.
We had a breakfast session on Tuesday, March 3, wherein we had the deputy CEO of ANZ speaking to us from Sydney.
She correctly highlighted that women numbers in leading roles remains low and more work needs to be done if we have to equalise.
This session was attended by more than 160 people.
All our initiatives and activities are designed to enable and encourage more women to rise up in the leadership ranks.
At Women in Business we believe that only through the equal participation of women in commerce and society in general will we perform better as people.
Here in Fiji we are far from equal in female leadership in all sectors of society and a lot of work and serious attention needs to be directed at increasing numbers of female leadership in business and commerce. Our many discussions over the recent years had highlighted that we need to include men in our agenda for equalisation.
Our male colleagues and leaders who continue to dominate the leadership scene and space need to own the agenda with us for equalising the participation through positive interventions and even disruptive actions such as targets and quotas for women in organisations. So we are asking everyone to question yourself as to your role in creating a more conducive environment of equal opportunities for women to perform and progress.
Ask yourself if you are a Each for Equal believer??
Do something to support IWD celebrations?
Be an Enabler to make the world more equal.
#EachforEqual
Wear purple with pride this month !! Thank you