Empowering Women from the Mountains
10.03.2015
Each year on 8 March, organizations and individuals around the globe come together to honour women’s struggle for social and economic equality and celebrate their tremendous contribution to society. At International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), this is an important opportunity to not only acknowledge the valuable contributions of women staff at ICIMOD, but also share and promote practices that the Centre has adopted for supporting women's rights and gender equality in the region.
In the mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalayas, women, have a unique relationship with their environment. As household managers, they play a critical role in sustaining and managing important environmental resources, with a rich bank of distinctive skills and knowledge. However, they are often more vulnerable and disproportionately affected by the environmental consequences of climate change and natural resource degradation. Achieving sustainable development in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region will require us to confront and transform the condition of women, and to continue down a path toward gender equality.
ICIMOD recognizes that its vision – that the ‘men, women, and children of the Hindu Kush Himalayas enjoy improved wellbeing in a healthy mountain environment’ – calls for change both within the institution and across the region to ensure that women and men have equal access to opportunities that will make this vision possible. International Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to collectively reflect on the challenges that women face, to discuss potential opportunities for action, and to take stock of what we, as an institution, have done to support gender equality.
In line with this year's International Women’s Day theme – ‘Making It Happen’ – ICIMOD is working to empower the women of the mountains, through the development and sharing of innovations, lessons, and best practices in social, political, economic, and technological fields. On International Women’s Day last year, I outlined several activities that would be undertaken at the Centre to support gender transformative change, and I am proud to say that we have made all of those happen.
Beginning in June 2014, ICIMOD has organized a series of gender sensitivity trainings to raise awareness within the institution of the implicit and explicit gender biases at the workplace, and to encourage all staff to work toward creating a gender-sensitive work environment. So far, nine trainings sessions have taken place, with two more planned to provide all staff with an opportunity to attend. To ensure the continuation of gender sensitivity and other gender-related trainings, we have included a session on gender during the orientation programme new staff are required to attend.
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Message from the Director General of ICIMOD for International Women’s Day 2015
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