On April 16, 2018, Equimundo’s President and CEO Gary Barker presented at the Stockholm Forum on Gender Equality, a convening to mobilize civil society, governments, private sector and academia from all over the world to intensify efforts for a gender equal world. The forum aims to use the strength and momentum of the UN Global Goals, covering critical issues and seeking common solutions around women’s and girl’s human rights, representation, and access to resources.
Participants exchanged experiences and approaches in order to take concrete steps to move the agenda forward. Held at a time when the world is witnessing both progress and movements restricting women’s and girls’ rights and space, the forum encouraged breaking out of silos and moving toward collective action.
Equimundo’s Gary Barker spoke on the “Women’s economic empowerment: Enabling a transformative change” panel organized by Sida. High-level representatives discussed key linkages, drivers, and enablers for accelerating transformative change in realizing women’s rights and economic empowerment, with a particular focus on recognizing, reducing and redistributing women’s and girls’ unpaid care and domestic work. The panel was moderated by Randi Davis, Director of the Gender Team at UNDP, and composed of:
- Purna Sen, Director, Policy Division, UN Women
- Carin Jämtin, Director General, Sida
- Gary Barker, President and CEO, Equimundo
- Sarah Hendriks, Director, Gender Equality, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Harsha Rodrigues, Executive Vice President for Strategy at Women’s World Banking
- Monika Queisser, Senior Counsellor, OECD DAC
Watch the panel below, beginning at 2:15:25:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8083&v=WUH2S4D6YLw
Equimundo and Sonke Gender Justice, co-coordinators of the global MenCare campaign, also led a pre-conference parallel session on “Equality in unpaid care: How to engage men as equitable, non-violent caregivers.”