Opinion: Parity for the Planet

Santiago Lefebvre CEO, ChangeNOW

For an organization like ChangeNOW, which organises the largest event of solutions for the planet and aims at establishing a more sustainable world, respecting gender equality is a no-brainer. 

Every year, we keep our promise of parity on the ChangeNOW stage because there is an outrageous number of women changemakers around the world (often too little known). But to go further, we have created a dedicated programme for them because we believe that the issue is not only about parity but also about visibility and connection to strategic stakeholders. Women changemakers are numerous, powerful and inspiring. They are key drivers of change. So they need to be made visible to strategic ecosystems, and we make this our mission with the Women for Change initiative.

As an accelerator of change, in charge of an influential and global event on social and environmental issues, we have a duty to give women changemakers a seat at the table so that all the voices are represented and benefit from the opportunities at stake. It is a responsibility we take very seriously because we know the impact it has. 

But the same cannot be said at the governance level. We need a general mobilisation of decision-makers.

The international delegations and the negotiation teams at the different COPs and other institutional summits must reach gender equity as well. The world we live in has been designed by men, for men and women. Unfortunately, history shows us that this establishes biases in our decision processes, as we miss a big part of the information. While at INSEAD, an organizational behavior teacher told me: “One of the biggest missed opportunities in an organization is that I don’t know what the other people in the room know”, unless everyone can express his knowledge. 

We must aim at a world designed by men and women, for women and men.

You may ask why this is so important? Because you may put all your efforts to make the right decision for a group, if the group has not brought all it has to say to the table, we will always stay short. And staying short for 51% of the world’s population is not short anymore.

Today’s challenge is not just about gender. Our challenge is to find a way to secure a livable planet for all. The decisions must be taken with a fair representation of gender, as this is our best chance to make the right calls.