On 22 September, Swedish Ambassador to the Philippines Annika Thunborg shared key milestones and learnings about Gender Equality from the Swedish experience at NordCham DiversiTV: The Network of Diversity and Dialogue webinar.
Since the 1970s, Sweden has taken steps to achieve gender parity in the workplace.
In a statement, the Embassy of Sweden in Manila explains that when companies give equal opportunity to men and women at work, this leads to business benefits like better creativity and innovation, an improved corporate image, and enhanced economic productivity of a country.
During her speech, Ambassador Annika Thunborg said, “I am certainly humbled by the task assigned to me here today of trying to talk about the importance of gender equality and diversity to a group such as yours which has worked on these issues for a long time in general and here in the Philippines specifically. I am very aware of the fact that the Philippines rank very high in global indexes on gender equality. For example, in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap Index from March this year, the Philippines ranks 17th, far ahead of all other countries in Asia and the majority of countries in Europe.”
Ambassador Annika Thunborg focused her intervention on the Swedish experience, why she believes we are where we are today in terms of gender equality, what remains to be done and she also touched down on a couple of words about initiatives taken by Swedish companies that aim to close the gender gap in the private sector.
Read Ambassador Annika Thunborg full speech here
