International Women’s Day is celebrated annually on 8th March to recognise women’s social, economic, cultural, and political achievements, raise awareness of discrimination and bias, and inspire and empower us to take action for equality.
This year, the theme of International Women’s Day is Accelerate Action #AccelerateAction. The aim of this theme is to encourage us all to collectively Accelerate Action for gender equality.
At the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158, which is roughly five generations from now, to reach full gender parity, according to data from the World Economic Forum. Focusing on the need to Accelerate Action emphasises the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face, both in personal and professional spheres.
Together, let’s Accelerate Action to speed up the rate of progress worldwide.
How can you help to Accelerate Action?
As individuals, we can all take steps in our daily lives to positively impact women’s advancement.
We can call out stereotypes, challenge discrimination, question bias, celebrate women’s success, and so much more. Additionally, sharing our knowledge and encouragement with others is key.
Impactful organisations and groups across the world deliver an array of effective strategies, resources, and activity that help #AccelerateAction in many areas including:
- forging women’s economic empowerment
- recruiting, retaining and developing diverse talent
- supporting women and girls into leadership, decision-making, business and STEM
- designing and building infrastructure meeting the needs of women and girls
- helping women and girls make informed decisions about their health
- involving women and girls in sustainable agriculture and food security
- providing women and girls with access to quality education and training
- elevating women and girl’s participation and achievement in sport
- promoting creative and artistic talent of women and girls
- addressing further areas supporting the advancement of women and girls
Accelerate Procurement: playing our part in Accelerating Action
As a majority female owned business, forging women’s economic empowerment and recruiting, retaining and developing female talent is very close to all our hearts.
And we don’t just talk the talk- we practise what we preach. We are proud to be authentic advocates for women in business and we actively support this Here’s how we do it:
– We support mentoring programmes for Women in Procurement and Women in Leadership, including the 30% Club, a formal mentoring program that we are involved in as mentors.
– We are one of the founding brands for GenM, the menopause partner for brands whose mission is to improve the menopause experience for all.
– We believe that women often face this challenge at the peak of their careers, frequently without support and awareness. We are passionate about inspiring good business practice to help keep women in the workplace: we believe that the menopause should be given the same level of importance as parenting and other D&I issues. We believe this deserves to be more than just policy: we work to help brands to recognise there is currently a very large group within the workplace with unmet needs.
– We head up a small support group outside of GenM, which takes a “bookclub approach” with a focus on policy and experience in the workplace.
– We are certified by WBENC/WEConnect International as a Women Owned business and are a certified member of the WEConnect network which allows big corporations to do business with Women-owned businesses.
Championing diversity in the procurement sector
Being a majority female owned organisation gives us a unique view in the consulting world and creates conversations that go beyond facts and data with a more human touch.
If you’d like to discuss how a partnership with Accelerate could help your businesses become more inclusive, and chat about all the benefits this can bring, get in touch today.