UNESCO

W36 GLOBAL SUMMIT FOR GENDER RELATED UNESCO CHAIRS: A Short Report 

The W36 Summit, a two-day event hosted virtually from India, was held on August 19-20. The summit aimed to discuss the challenges faced by women across the world, particularly the issues highlighted after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The summit established a platform to bring together all gender-related UNESCO Chairs and networks worldwide to unite voices and spark momentum for addressing challenges and co-building a bright future for all women across the globe.

On the first day, 36 gender-related UNESCO chairs were given the opportunity to introduce their activities and plans towards a more gender-equal world. On the second day, the summit hosted several speakers from different countries.

As an introduction, the hosts endorsed that the very recent studies show that by 2050, it is estimated that millions of girls and women face different forms of inequality, which will hinder their lives. Towards a better future for women and based on UN sustainable development goal 5, gender equality, the mentioned 36 UNESCO chairs aim to reinforce their network and stand against gender inequality and the widening gender gap.

The presentations of the first day corroborated that the pandemic has sabotaged the condition of women worldwide. The positive side of the case is that the mechanism of gender inequality has been more exposed during the last two years and so, many scholars are reconsidering the old solutions of the problem in a way that they function more effectively. According to the first-day speakers, all these 36 UNESCO chairs have accelerated their activities, held workshops, and published articles and books with the purpose of changing the drastic situation of women and other genders in different countries.

On the second day of the summit, the speakers presented the initiative’s actual ways of solving the inequality problem. The specific topics of ten presentations in two rooms of the summit were “Science and Technology, Education and Skill Development, Society, Culture and Legal Rights, Health and Nutrition, Safety and Security, Environment and Sustainability, Finance and Economics, Communication and Leadership”.

The presenters from India, as well as the other speakers, shared visions and showed that empowering women is one of the strongest ways to save the world not only from inequality but also from other global problems such as environmental and climate change. The projects on refugee women, villager women, and women of color in India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and Nigeria present progressive advances on how the cooperation of women in managing waste, water resources, and education puts the communities on the way of sustainable development.

In a general viewpoint, the summit was successful in opening new debates about the practical ways of overcoming the harsh situation of women. Also, it gave an opportunity to the participants to learn fresh elaborated solutions for old issues.

Leila Papoli-Yazdi

Dr Leila Papoli-Yazdi, Linnaeus University, is a member of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University. She researches the dirty heritage of modern civilization; garbage, waste, and consumption — particularly to develop novel methods towards environmental and social sustainability in the future.