Pakistan Business Council (PBC) Chairman Ziad Bashir has linked the country's sustainable growth to women having equal opportunities and rights as their male counterparts. "Inclusive and sustainable growth is only possible when women have the same opportunities and rights at work as men," Bashir said while speaking at an awards ceremony - hosted by the PBC and International Finance Corporation (IFC) - in Karachi.
The IFC-PBC Employer of Choice Gender Diversity Awards recognise companies that are opening up opportunities for women at work and publishing their findings. Delivering the keynote address, Senator Sherry Rehman said the task before the corporate sector was practical rather than philosophical. "By putting together a toolkit for changing corporate culture to make women feel safe in the business space, we are encouraging women to rise through the ranks on merit." Opening the event, Bashir told the audience that the barrier was never a shortage of talented women, but the way companies select and promote people. He drew on the story of the world's great orchestras, where fewer than one musician in twenty was a woman until auditions were moved behind a screen - after which the share rose to about a third within a generation.
"Not one woman got better at playing an instrument because of a curtain," he said. "The talent had been there the whole time. The women never needed fixing.
A prejudice takes a generation. A procedure takes a meeting. Pakistan has been playing with half an orchestra, and it is time we let the other half on the stage." He noted that the IMF estimates closing Pakistan's gender gap would grow the economy by around thirty per cent, and said the case for change had already been won inside the corporate sector.
"Awareness has been achieved. Implementation is what is required. A policy signed by the CEO with no budget, no owner and no date does not mean anything until we turn it into practice." "Inclusive and sustainable growth is only possible when women have the same opportunities and rights at work as men," Bashir also said.
"These awards have given companies a reason to act, and the companies that act are seeing it in stronger performance, better retention and greater investor confidence," he added. "When firms adopt and publicly disclose gender diversity policies, they create transparency and accountability, and they encourage others to follow," said PCB Javed Kureishi. "This fifth cycle shows a growing commitment among leading companies, and congratulations are due to every one of them." "Our challenge is to deliver growth that creates more and better jobs, and that means enabling more women to enter and thrive in the workforce," said Simon Andrews, IFC division director for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
"Our ambition is to work with industry until attracting, retaining and advancing talented women is the standard in every workplace, not the exception.".