UNECE gender declaration: one year on

It’s been a year since ISO signed the UNECE Declaration on Gender Responsive Standards. Since then, we’ve worked hard to meet our commitment to achieving gender equality.

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The Declaration commits signatories to create and implement gender action plans (GAP) to support more gender-balanced and inclusive standards development processes, as well as to strengthen the gender responsiveness of standards themselves.

Just a few months after signing, the ISO Council approved the Gender Action Plan 2019-2021, which sets out initiatives and establishes ambitious goals towards supporting gender equality in standardization.

As part of its GAP, ISO has launched the Gender Focal Point Network. This platform helps share knowledge and best practice between our global members, 48 of whom are also signatories to the Declaration. 

The importance of gender equality in standardization, and ISO’s work in the Gender Action Plan, is explained in this video, which we’ve also shared on our social channels.

To continue to build on our progress over the last year, we will implement effective monitoring towards the long-term objectives defined in the GAP. To this end, ISO is working to collect data on gender representation in standardization work, which will help establish a baseline and better understand the scale of the challenges. 

If you have any questions or would like to assist ISO in its efforts, please send an e-mail to gender@iso.org.

Our top 5 gap priorities

Priority area

1

Collect data on gender representation

Collect data on gender representation at the following levels: NSB CEOs, technical committees (committee managers, chairs, convenors and experts) and ISO governance bodies.

Priority area

2

Collect case studies and best practices on Standards in support of gender equality

Collect case studies on national and international standards to define best practices on standards in support of gender equality.

A repository of NSB Gender Action Plans and applicable policies and processes to support gender equality and women’s empowerment in standardization.

Priority area

3

Assess the gender responsiveness of ISO Standards

Improve understanding of the possible gender implications of selected ISO standards.

Create tools to support the technical committees to ensure that the standards they develop/revise are gender-responsive.

Priority area

4

Raise awareness of standards in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment

Improve understanding and knowledge of standards in support of gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Priority area

5

ISO’s policy on gender

Define long-term objectives related to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

ISO Gender Action Plan team

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