The Women's Forum 2021 took place this year from November 15th to 19th, with a four-day program of online and in- person conferences at the Carrousel du Louvre on Friday, November 19th. The mission of the event is to mainstream a gender perspective and drive inclusive solutions to global social and economic challenges. For its comeback, the Women's Forum decided to reorient the priorities of its organization to respond quickly and strongly to the dramatic consequences of the pandemic on gender equality. These two years of crisis have set back the fight by 36 years. There is an urgent need to intervene, and the ambition of this edition is to bring together the ideas, energies, and strengths of everyone to catch up in the race for equality. In order to open up the discussion to all generations, 10,000 young people were invited for the first time to participate to the event (virtually and 100 in person). This living force, from all over the world, will participate in building a fairer world by launching calls for concrete actions.
Speakers with incredible backgrounds
This Global Meeting brought together 93 speakers of over 100 nationalities in 22 plenary sessions and 8 short sessions. Coming from different and complementary backgrounds, their words intersected within the framework of the Women's Forum to bring out proposals and solutions that allowed us to move the lines. - Politicians such as Halimah Yacob, President of Singapore, Elisabeth Moreno, Minister for Equality between Women and Men, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, tech figures such as Sara Clemens, COO of Twitch, Maurice Lévy, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Publicis Groupe, Thomas Buberl, CEO of AXA, Rumman Chowdhury, Director of Ethical Issues in Machine Learning at Twitter, activists such as Vanessa Nakate, of the Rise Up Movement Africa, Atti Worku, Co-CEO of the African Visionary Fund, Bernard Gavgani, CIO of BNP Paribas, Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace Worldwide, Blessing Omawku, Executive Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, LaTosha Brown, Founder of Black Voters Matter, or from the corporate side, with a virtuous perspective, such as Alexandra Palt, CSR Director of L'Oréal, all were part of this priority fight.
"We were proud and honored to host this year's panel of incredible individuals who are true role models and who dedicate their lives to transforming the lives of others. All of these inspiring personalities are fighting to make our world a better, more inclusive, and more equal place, and seeing them gathered at the Women's Forum makes me believe, now more than ever, in the possibility of such a future," said Audrey Tcherkoff, Managing Director of the Women's Forum for the Economy & Society.
A rich program covering the societal issues that are most likely to cause inequality:
This year's Global Meeting was organized around four major societal themes in which women's action and leadership must be valued:
- Monday, November 15, the opening day was dedicated to the climate, with numerous online conferences focusing on a greener and more responsible future that includes women and men in this common Jennifer Morgan - Executive Director, Greenpeace opened this session.
- Tuesday November 16 was dedicated to tech and innovation with a program to promote access to STEM education for young women. The round table Fighting hate with love: deploying AI as an instrument of inclusion was accessible at 16:45.
- On Wednesday November 17 , the focus was on health. The pandemic has been a major topic over the past 18 months, highlighting gender inequalities. Discussions and solutions for equal access to health care were at the heart of the program. The round table Connecting the dots: women's health through the life-course was held at 16.00.
- On Thursday November 18 , women's entrepreneurship was celebrated. Women leaders and entrepreneurs came to defend an egalitarian society synonymous with economic growth with the conference Life lessons: a conversation on leadership, purpose, and inclusion at 18:30.
- Finally, on Friday November 19, all these major social issues were highlighted at the Carrousel du Louvre. This was an opportunity to take stock of the concrete transformations that we can all carry out for the good of Climate activist Anuna de Wever, feminist influencer Camille Aumont Carnel, Maurice Lévy and Diane von Furstenberg opened the day at 8.40 am.
The week of the Global Meeting was an opportunity to transform words into strong actions through initiatives aiming to bring solutions to the problems raised:
-WomenEntrepreneurs4Good on Friday 19 November in plenary. As part of the Daring Circle Women4Business, the Women's Forum, in partnership with Procter & Gamble and HEC Paris, launched last March WomenEntrepreneurs4Good, an initiative designed to encourage female creativity and entrepreneurship in Europe, through an annual startup acceleration program, which supports 9 projects led by women with high potential ideas in France, Germany and Italy, aiming to provide them with unique resources and skills to innovate and grow their businesses as part of the European Green Deal strategy. The program aims to double the number of women entrepreneurs supported, with a view to sustainability, coaching and geographical outreach, to extend beyond Europe.
-ClimateAction partnership with ClimateSeed: The Women's Forum is committed to fighting climate change by measuring and reducing its emissions and contributing to carbon reduction projects with gender equality co-benefits. This commitment will cover all emissions generated by the Women's Forum's activities throughout the year to reach a net zero level. In collaboration with ClimateSeed, the Women's Forum has selected three emissions reduction projects to be supported for all Women's Forum events in 2021. The three projects, from three countries (Kenya, Romania, Guatemala) all contribute to the achievement of MDG 5 (gender equality) through the support and empowerment of women in local communities