Today is International Women’s Day! For this special day, we organised a specific ‘Future of..’ session to discuss gender equality, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). During these ‘Future of..’ sessions within IDA, we address different topics about our working culture, projects or partnerships. We take the opportunity to invite guest speakers and to learn more about other departments and ongoing projects. In today's session, we were very happy to have Jamie Holton (Programme Manager Business & Human Rights and Gender Equality) from UN Global Compact Network Nederland as our guest speaker, to share more information on the tools and approaches of UN Global Compact and Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). We also shared insights on (male) #allyship, unconscious bias and discussed paternal leave as a benefit to gender equality.

The future of diversity, equity, inclusion and gender equality

As we are a diverse organisation with over 25 different nationalities, a large team in India, and delivering to countries around the world, diversity, equity and inclusion is a topic that we want to focus on. This is also an important pillar in our sustainability strategy, just like gender equality. Two of our colleagues recently participated in the Target Gender Equality (TGE) accelerator programme organised by UN Global Compact and WEPs, gaining knowledge about the importance of gender parity and receiving tools on how to achieve this within the working place. An important part of the TGE programme was to perform a gender gap analysis through a tool provided by WEPs. The outcome of this analysis will form the baseline for a future strategy towards gender parity at IDA Foundation.

IDA supplies specific products for women

Gender equality is also an important factor influencing global health and development. At IDA we have been building a portfolio specifically for the care of mothers and women, as we believe health is key to global development. Our Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (RMNCH) portfolio has products such as female condoms, menstrual products, pregnancy supplements, and a manual breast pump to express milk. Too many women around the world do not have access to these products and we believe it is our mission to bridge the gap and ensuring all women are supported when it comes to their reproductive health and the health of their (newborn) children. By increasing access to these products we support SDG 3 and SDG 5. Want to know more about IDA's strategy? Read more here.