Dear friends,
To mark this year's International Women's Day, people across the world are being asked to make a 'Pledge for Parity'. In my view, there is no better time to make such a commitment.
The World Economic Forum estimates that it will take until 2133 for men and women to gain economy parity. We need to close this gap sooner - and we need to start now.
Whether as an individual or an organisation, we all have the power to take concrete action to advance gender equality - from ensuring that women are given equal opportunities to progress in the workplace to challenging our own internal biases.
This International Women’s Day the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women is making a number of pledges to ensure that women are able to participate in their societies and economies on an equal footing with men. Read on to find out more - and tell us about your own #PledgeforParity on Twitter.
With warm regards,
 Sevi Simavi
CEO
Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
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Pledge #1
The Foundation pledges to engage more men in the fight for women's empowerment.
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Did you know that our Mentoring Women in Business Programme recruits both men and women to act as mentors to women entrepreneurs in developing and emerging economies? In fact, we're proud that around 20% of our mentors are men.
Involving men in the fight for gender equality is not just an 'add-on'. It is essential to making real progress. And we know that when men take an active role in women's empowerment, it's not just women who benefit. Take Michael, for example, who told us about his experience of working with his mentee, Ruth: “Seeing Ruth start her new business from scratch in a new location, helping her plan a strategy and develop her business was amazing. Understanding the reality of a female entrepreneur in Africa was fascinating. I learned a lot from a cultural and personal perspective.â€
We are always keen to welcome more men - and women! - to the programme, and are currently recruiting new mentors who are experts in their field.
>> Click here to find out more about joining our Mentoring Programme
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Pledge #2
The Foundation pledges to bring more banks to the table to improve women's access to financial services
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Over one billion women across the world don’t have access to a basic bank account. That’s over one billion women without a safe or secure way to save, invest, spend or borrow money.
At the Foundation, we believe that banks and other financial institutions must take a more active role in reaching out to women entrepreneurs. Today, in fact, Cherie is in Nigeria to launch Road to Women's Business Growth, an exciting new project we are delivering in partnership with the ExxonMobil Foundation and the Enterprise Development Centre of Pan-Atlantic University. This project is building the financial literacy skills of 500 Nigerian women entrepreneurs. Diamond Bank is playing a pivotal role in our Road to Women's Business Growth training programme by providing women with information on the financial products that could best serve their businesses.
We have also forged strong links with other financial institutions in Rwanda, India, Lebanon, Palestine and Sierra Leone, bringing them into direct dialogue with the women entrepreneurs we support. And we pledge to continue to advocate for women's financial inclusion around the world.
>>Click here to watch our new film about Road to Women's Business Growth
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Pledge #3
The Foundation pledges to use its voice to promote digital inclusion for women.
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Worldwide, women are missing out on technological advances which have the potential to transform lives. For example, women in emerging economies are 14% less likely than men to own a mobile phone, and globally 200 million fewer women than men are online.
Our Founder, Cherie, addressed these issues at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, speaking on a panel alongside Women's World Banking and the Alliance for Affordable Internet to call for greater efforts to close the gender gaps in digital and financial inclusion. At the Foundation, we know that digital access can be a powerful catalyst for financial inclusion. For example, our project in Rwanda, with Accenture and CARE International, is rolling out a range of savings and loan products to rural women via a mobile banking platform hosted by Kenya Commercial Bank.
>>Click here to watch Cherie speaking to The New Economy at Mobile World Congress about the significant gender gap in mobile phone ownership
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Finally...our website has a new look!
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