Seeking gender quality, Male Champions of Change holds ‘Insights Meeting’

Seeking gender quality, Male Champions of Change holds ‘Insights Meeting’

Male Champions of Change (MCC) Pakistan held their milestone event, the Insights Meeting, at Serena Hotel, Islamabad. Based on the work undertaken between the organizations and MCC Pakistan on the trademark format of Male Champions of Change Australia, the Insights Meeting was the outcome of aggressive working undertaken between the ten organizations whose CEOs signed up to become the first male leaders of the country who have actively taken on the commitment to step up for gender equality agenda, creating more inclusive and progressive organizations.

Male Champions of Change is a strategy to achieve transformative action for gender equality by engaging male CEOs to commit to gender equality on an individual and institutional capacity and has been endorsed by the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Women Economic Empowerment after reviewing multiple global policy frameworks and analyzing projects around the world. The project works with influential leaders to redefine the role that is played by male leaders, when it comes to tackling gender inequality. The successful Male Champions of Change project was founded in Australia in 2010, by the then Australian Sex Discrimination Minister Elizabeth Broderick who convened the project and scaled up the initial network of 8 CEO’s to the most powerful coalition of men in Australia consisting of 230 members including CEO’s, Board of Directors, Government Department, University and Military Leaders.

 

The successful MCC Strategy was launched in Pakistan by Fiza Farhan, member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Women Empowerment and global advisor on gender equality in October 2018. Leading the first international expansion of the group, Fiza brought together 10 leading CEO’s from the private sector space including the leadership of corporate organizations like Telenor Pakistan, PepsiCo Pakistan, Ubank, Shell Pakistan, PMIC, FINCA Microfinance Bank, Netsol Technologies and Lahore Qalandars bringing a diverse mix of committed men of power to the table to further the agenda of gender equality. “It is a pleasure for me to bring to Pakistan, the most unique and impactful Male Champions of Change strategy from Australia that encourages men of power to step up besides women for creating a more gender neutral world and has been endorsed as a most effective strategy for achieving tangible results for gender equality by the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Women Empowerment. I am thrilled by the response of the Pakistani CEO’s who have shown great commitment to leading gender equality within not only their organizations but the entire sectors they represent” Fiza Farhan at the MCC Insights Meeting.

Similar sentiments were also stated by Mr Kabeer Naqvi, President Ubank, who stated,:”Women empowerment is very close to our heart at Ubank. The fact that almost half of the management team comprises of women is testimony to that fact. Not only do we focus on the number of women in our work force, we make sure that we have women in positions of power and decision making. MCC’s vision matches with ours and I’m really glad to be part of it”.