Breaking Barriers: UAE's Sustainability & Gender Equality Revolution

Another 286 Years For The World To Achieve Gender Equality

The report also found that over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having access to the same jobs as men. Meanwhile, women only contribute 37% to the global GDP, according to the World Bank.

The World Economic Forum has also found that it will take another 132 years to close the global gender gap.

The World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law 2022 report found that 2.4 billion women of working age aren't offered equal economic opportunity, and 178 countries maintain legal barriers preventing their full economic participation. In 86 countries, women face some form of job restriction, and 95 countries don't guarantee equal pay for equal work.

Dr. Miniya Chatterji, a global leader in sustainability and CEO of Sustain Labs Paris, is working with her organisation to promote gender equality and women in leadership positions. SLP's projects evaluate governance KPIs that promote gender equality in Fortune 500 companies, and they are focused on building a future generation of decision-makers, policy-makers, innovators, and entrepreneurs to make a sustainable future.

SLP looks at gender equality and the number of women in leadership positions in Fortune 500 companies. This gives them a voice when we talk about easing the load on women.In India, Dr. Chatterji's organisation established the first undergraduate engineering degree to a PhD climate school, which makes a conscious effort to maintain a high gender balance and a ratio of 60:40 girls to boys among students.

The UAE's top spot in the Global Gender Gap Report 2022 from the World Economic Forum is a good reason to work towards gender equality.Dr. Chatterji is trying to combat the challenge of wage discrepancies between men and women employees by offering mentorship programmes, flexible work arrangements, and supporting non-traditional career paths.

Dr. Chatterji and SLP's efforts to empower women also reflect in her personal life. She founded the Stargazers Foundation in 2010 to improve women's education and health in India by including healthy and skilled women from economically backward regions into the mainstream economy and governance structures, with programmes in the Middle East and India.

Dr. Chatterji believes that women can be authentic in the workplace without apologising for or diminishing their roles as wives or mothers, and she has mentored young women for over 20 years, focusing on this idea. Despite progress in promoting gender equality, a long way remains to go. However, technology, entrepreneurship, and smart policymaking hold hope for making tangible progress towards gender parity.