Gender Equality Forum
Women’s Issues, Global Perspectives
2021
Year of Event
18
Speakers & Moderators
12
Countries Represented
3
Sessions
The Event
A level playing field, within this lifetime
Women’s Issues Global Perspectives was a hybrid video conference held on Sun Media’s EEXPO.SG portal on 1 March 2021, in collaboration with the women’s advocacy group AWARE and the Diplomatic Corps, sponsored by Olam International. It was timed to Singapore’s year of celebrating SG Women.
The World Economic Forum had projected that closing the global gender gap would take a hundred years. For the eighteen speakers and moderators from a dozen nations, that was simply too long. Across three sessions they shared the policies, practices, and hard lessons behind gender parity in their own countries.
The conference was opened by H.E. George Tumur, Ambassador of Mongolia and Dean of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps in Singapore, who noted that while most constitutions guarantee equal rights, discrimination still persists in practice.
Gender participation is everyone’s business.
Ms Jackline Kamanzi
The Programme
Three sessions, twelve nations
From best practice to leadership to business, the conference moved through three deliberations on how to close the gap.
Panel One
Gender Parity & Best Practices
H.E. Nancy Lynn McDonald
High Commissioner of Canada
H.E. Sandra Jensen Landi
Ambassador of Denmark
H.E. Antti Vanska
Ambassador of Finland
Ms Jackline Kamanzi
Executive Secretary, National Women’s Council of Rwanda
Panel Two
Women in Leadership
H.E. Anita Nergaard
Ambassador of Norway
H.E. Joanne Diedre Tyndall
High Commissioner of New Zealand
H.E. Periasamy Kumaran
High Commissioner of India
Amb. Margriet Vonno
Ambassador of the Netherlands
High Commissioner of Sri Lanka
Ambassador of the Netherlands
Panel Three
Gender Parity & Businesses
Ms Janaky Grant
Group CLO & CHRO, Olam International
H.E. Niclas Kvarnström
Ambassador of Sweden
Mr Sopnendu Mohanty
Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore
Ms Carmelita Hartoo
President Director, Andhika Lines; Vice Chair, KADIN Indonesia
In Their Words
Voices from the conference
Three lines from a conversation that refused to wait a hundred years.
