Global gender parity in less than 131 years? Here's what needs to happen, say experts

At the midway point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we're falling behind with progress to achieve a key goal on which nearly three-quarters of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rely.

Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls is Goal 5 of the SDGs. But 73% of all the SDG targets are either directly or significantly reliant on it, according to a recent assessment by Equal Measures 2030.

The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023 found it will take an estimated 131 years to reach full parity at the current trajectory.

Out of the four gaps measured, the Political Empowerment gap is the least closed, at only 22.1%.

As part of the Forum's Sustainable Development Impact Meetings for 2023, leaders came together to offer solutions in a passionate session on Accelerating Progress on Gender Parity.

The speakers were: Reshma Saujani, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Moms First; Clare Akamanzi, Chief Executive Officer, Rwanda Development Board (RDB); Thierry Déau, Chief Executive Officer, Meridiam; and Randall Tucker, Chief Inclusion Officer, Mastercard International Incorporated.

During SDIM23, a multistakeholder group of leaders also came together to work on developing the Gender Parity Sprint to reduce time to parity and speed up progress towards SDG5.

Here are some of the key quotes from the SDIM23 panel session on what needs to happen to reach gender parity faster.

"I don't think we have to 131 years, it requires all of us doing our part," said Clare Akamanzi, adding that Rwanda is one of the top ranking countries for gender parity globally. It ranked 12th overall in the Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023, having closed 79.4% of its gap.

"Deliberate leadership for gender inclusion is important. It's not going to happen on its own."

The leader of a country needs to ensure women are represented on cabinets in the same way company leaders must include women on boards, Akamanzi said.

"Women across the globe do two-thirds of the caregiving work while they're maintaining their full-time jobs," said Reshma Saujani.

"So if you have a broken structure of care – when daycare centres and schools shut down in the pandemic, everything fell apart, and millions of women in the United States and across the world are pushed out of the workforce.

"What we learned in the United States was that key structural changes had not been made in our march towards equality, that have impeded our progress."

Saujani said paid parental leave and affordable childcare are crucial elements to close the gender gap.

"The reason why we have a pay gap is because, for dads, every time they have a child, they make 6% more. For women, every time they have a baby, they lose 4% of their salary. We have to focus on structural change if we actually want to be free."

She said the conversation about care needs to be brought into the mainstream and framed in an economic light about the "billions, if not trillions, of dollars that we're missing from the economy because most women work to work".

"We need a lot more role models of women who are working and looking after their families," said Akamanzi.

"I am CEO of the Rwanda Development Board, I have a two-year-old and I have a four-year-old, so it's been a busy last four years. But I think having more women like this, and in Rwanda there are so many CEOs who are doing this, and we talk about it, we create platforms where they can share the experiences, the difficulties, the challenges.

"By doing that people are getting more open-minded to having more women leading because they think it's possible... It's really important to normalize that women can do it and we need a lot more examples."

Saujani agreed, adding: "I have a three-year-old and an eight-year-old; I built one of the largest women and girls' organizations in the world and I'm doing it again. I strapped my baby to my back and I raised $100 million for Girls Who Code."

"At Mastercard, we don't talk about it as 'maternity leave', we talk about it as 'parental leave'," said Randall Tucker.

"Part of the solution is having men leave. And in our most senior levels of the organization, they are almost expected to leave because they want to send a sign to the organization that it's OK. So it's not the burden of the woman to feel like she has to do the traditional role, but it's everyone's opportunity."

Internships are important in creating a pipeline of future women leaders, the panel agreed.

In Rwanda, 61% of parliament is made up of women. "It's the highest proportion in the world," said Akamanzi, explaining the country has a decentralized system of governance from the village up to the national level with a quota of 30% female inclusion at each level.

"We're supporting a critical mass of pipeline of women that can be mentored, can be exposed to leadership, so when the time comes for them to take on those positions, they are available to do that."

Watch the whole session below.