The UAE is making significant strides towards gender equality by focusing on private sector partners. Accenture is one of the latest companies to sign a pledge to increase the percentage of women in leadership.
The Middle East arm of professional services firm Accenture has pledged to accelerate gender balance in the UAE in line with the United Nations’ fifth Sustainable Development Goal, which encourages increasing the percentage of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2025.
Accenture has signed pledges with more than a dozen multinational companies, including Boeing and Raytheon, which are members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Abu Dhabi.
Developed in 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an international blueprint of 17 interrelated goals aimed at “creating peace and prosperity for people and planet now and in the future”, covering areas such as eradicating poverty, Provide education to promote responsible production and consumption. The fifth goal outlines steps to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” by 2030.
Unfortunately, recent events have set back efforts to achieve gender equality, especially in education and workforce participation. In its latest progress report, the United Nations wrote: “The world is not yet on track to achieve gender equality by 2030, and is further off track due to the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic. Women and girls remain disproportionately affected, with struggling with lost jobs and livelihoods and derailed education.”
Women made up just under 40 percent of the global workforce before the pandemic but accounted for 45 percent of subsequent job losses, with those still working shouldering the additional unpaid burden, according to United Nations statistics. housework burden. One factor is that the percentage of women in managerial positions has increased only slightly over the past two decades, from 25 percent in 2000 to just 28 percent two decades later.
Globally, another broader problem is the persistent lack of government tools and reporting mechanisms to measure progress. However, the UAE has been an international leader in transparently pursuing the SDGs, including through the establishment of a dedicated Gender Balance Committee (UAE GBC) dedicated to SDG 5.
In a voluntary national review conducted last year, the UAE outlined the launch of its 2026 National Gender Balance Strategy.
Accenture’s Commitment
It is against this backdrop that Accenture and a host of other companies, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, are the latest signatories to the Accelerating Commitment to Women Leadership in the UAE Private Sector.
The commitment has five key elements; promote gender-responsive recruitment and promotion; ensure equal and fair pay for work of equal value and foster a culture that encourages all employees to reach their full potential; mainstream gender balance through company policies and programmes.
The fifth element involves transparency of progress by the government and other companies involved in the pledge, with numbers exceeding 50 for many industries to date, including Kearney and KPMG Same with other players in the consulting field. As part of the program, these companies are encouraged to participate in full-group workshops and work closely together to share internal best practices, challenges, and creative policy solutions.
One such meeting was recently held at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in which Sheikha Manal bint Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairperson of the UAE GBC, said: “Strategic partnerships between government and the private sector are crucial to achieving national goals at all levels. important. The UAE’s inspiring private sector commitment to accelerate progress towards the fifth SDG and strengthen gender balance is a model for the region and the world.”
Accenture may have a small advantage to back its efforts to increase the representation of women in middle and senior leadership – the professional services firm’s approach in the UAE is Led by Nadia Abdulla KamaliSenior with the Middle East Alexis Le Canue Managing Director Said when she was appointed. “We are delighted to have Nadya on board and look forward to strengthening our focus on women’s leadership development and empowerment,” Lecanuet said.